The Three Doors
by Cliodna Queen of the Banshee
Summary: At King's Cross at the end of book seven, Harry is given a choice - but not exactly the kind he was expecting. A different kind of "Harry chooses and goes back" story. Fem Harry. Slytherin Harry. Ravenclaw Harry. Hufflepuff Harry. Different Dursleys. Harry/Draco. Harry/Tom. Tom Riddle is Not Voldemort.
1. Lily's Choice (Beginning Again)

The Three Doors

Summary: At King's Cross at the end of book seven, Harry is given a choice - but not exactly the kind he was expecting. A different kind of "Harry chooses and goes back" story. Fem Harry. Slytherin Harry. Ravenclaw Harry. Hufflepuff Harry. Different Dursleys. Harry/Draco. Harry/Tom. Tom Riddle is Not Voldemort.

Prologue: Lily's Choice (Beginning Again)

Harry opened his eyes, and found he was not wearing his glasses anymore. He did not need them. He sat up and thought of clothes on his body, and he had them, a tee and jeans. Around him was nothing - a blank white space.

But slowly, it began filling with shapes and color. Harry slowly stood. Soon, a gleaming clean and totally empty King's Cross Station had formed around him. He heard a cry - and looked around.

A pathetic little form was lying underneath a nearby bench, a bloody little thing, unwanted and ignored, curled up and shut off from the world. Harry walked forward, wanting to help its pitiful cries. And then -

"Harry."

Harry stopped dead in place at the voice - and turned slowly around.

"Mum."

Lily Potter was standing there smiling warmly, hands crossed in front of her. She had her long red hair and her brilliant green eyes, and was wearing a big, warm blue and gold sweater filled with big cross stitches.

Harry swallowed down a lump in his throat. "I've always wanted to meet you in person. You - came to get me?"

"In a way. Walk with me, Harry," said Lily.

"But -" Harry looked back at the pitiful little crying, bloody form beneath the bench.

"Yes." Lily frowned, somber. "I will not tell you to look away, or stop caring. I don't think it would be healthy."

"That's - that's his soul," Harry realized. "Voldemort's."

"I always did love, Harry, your ability for compassion towards the people who treated you the worst," said Lily simply. "You should know - Remus and Tonks are dead. Fred Weasley is dead. Colin Creevey is dead. Lavender Brown is dead. As are scores of others."

The full weight of this hit Harry. He sat slowly down on another bench.

"Everything's a mess," he realized. "Voldemort's soul is in tatters, so many people have died who shouldn't have, I just died, and Voldemort must be winning."

But Lily was smiling. "I was hoping you'd see it that way - Harry."

Harry looked up in surprise.

Lily sat down on the bench beside him. "Here's how this works. You were given an image that would most symbolically represent what this place is to you. In your case, King's Cross Station, the place where you boarded to Hogwarts.

"Like with King's Cross, you have a choice. You could either take the train… on, so to speak. You could go back, and fight again. When Voldemort used a vial of your blood to revive himself, he connected his body to yours. You technically don't have to die unless he does. But he can die and you don't have to."

"I'm… sensing a third option here." Harry was frowning. "But what would it be?"

"I… managed to talk them into arranging a third option for you," Lily admitted. She stood and waved a hand. Three doors appeared floating before Harry. "You could go back a different way," she said. "Go back in time."

Harry stood quickly, eagerly. "I could go back to my old body?"

Lily winced. "Not… exactly. You see, there is no way of sending you back to your younger body with your memories of this timeline intact. Time doesn't work that way."

Harry frowned. "Then what use is it? The same things would just happen again."

But Lily smiled, her eyes gleaming, hard. "Not if you're put in a different life. You see, through each of these doors, Harry, you would lose your memories but become a girl instead. Grow up as a female. But even that's not enough to really change everything. I managed to talk them into giving each girl a different childhood-based point of divergence in the timeline. Each girl has a different life, starting from the early years."

Harry's head was swimming. "So my third choice… is to go back as a girl… and at some point in childhood, each girl's life becomes different from mine?"

"Exactly!" said Lily triumphantly.

"And I have to pick a door."

"Yes."

Harry pondered this. He couldn't imagine himself being a girl, but… "If the same things wouldn't have to happen again," he whispered to himself, eyes keen, mind spinning. He could go back to Sirius dying, or Dobby, or Cedric Diggory, even.

None of those things had to happen.

"I'll take the third option!" he said, looking up, determined. "So… what are my choices?"

"Besides your early years circumstances, there are only two things all girls have in common. They all look basically like me, and they all have the same phoenix feather wand core connecting them to Voldemort."

"Right. Makes sense - if I look like my Dad," said Harry thoughtfully.

"The farthest door to the left is a girl named Esmeralda. She has black hair and green eyes. She is a Slytherin." Harry's eyebrows rose. "Her wand is made of Silver Lime - a silvery wand for mysterious arts like Seers and Legilimency.

"In Esmeralda's childhood timeline, your Aunt Petunia has a luxurious bathing-house experience - it has Asian style influences, but it involves workers preparing luxurious baths with scents, bath bombs, dried flowers, candles, and face masks, that kind of a thing, for customers to relax and detox. Inspired, your aunt begins working there outside the home. Influenced by her coworkers, she becomes quite unlike the self you know - she starts wearing big vintage jackets, and she takes up writing.

"Your Uncle Vernon can't handle this -"

"I'd bet not," Harry muttered to himself.

"So she becomes divorced from Vernon and gains partial custody of Dudley. She gets full custody of Esmeralda, and as Petunia starts to feel more independently magical, the two become closer. Petunia starts dating a London cartoonist, and moves in with him in a London house with lots of wood, repurposed metal furniture, and exposed brickwork. Of course, she takes Esmeralda with her, and Esmeralda's home environment especially with her closer connection to her aunt becomes markedly different."

"That's… a lot to take in," Harry admitted. "All right, so - what are the other two doors?"

"The middle door is for a girl named Anastasia. She has red hair and hazel eyes. She is a Ravenclaw. Her wand is made of Acacia - a reddish wood that is sensitive, subtle, artistic, and tricky, but powerful.

"Petunia and Vernon get Anastasia into competitive baking, the only real hobby in the beginning they would allow her."

"That's probably true," Harry admitted.

"From there, Anastasia expands into other accomplishments: piano and violin, voice, and figure skating. Through this, she finds imagination, worth within her family, an ability to do accomplished things on her own, and family acceptance. She ceases to be bullied and the whole family dynamic changes with her new hobbies. Her family redecorates their wealthy suburban home; it becomes a modernist house filled with white colors, swirling light fixtures, glass and crystal, and wide airy spaces. Anastasia becomes an accomplished city suburban girl amid the intact and kinder Dursley family."

"And… the third door?" Harry asked tentatively.

"The door to the right belongs to a girl named Ingrid. She has strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes. She is a Hufflepuff. Her wand is made of Pine - a strikingly straight grained creative and nonverbal wand wood, for intriguing and perhaps mysterious loners.

"In Ingrid's timeline, your Uncle Vernon is diagnosed with Asperger's after several employee complaints require a psych evaluation."

Harry snorted.

"Be serious, Harry," Lily warned. "Your uncle really has it."

Harry became more serious. "I… maybe I can see that," he admitted, thinking back over his uncle.

"Your uncle undergoes therapy, but he ends up divorcing your Aunt Petunia because she in her most unevolved form cannot handle the idea of having an 'abnormal' husband. Vernon moves with Marge into a country house on the outskirts of Surrey city, a spacious rustic place with big fireplaces, with her dogs. Getting to know you and Dudley up close, she becomes much kinder towards you. Because of this, Vernon ends up getting sole custody of both children, neatly leaving the blood protection intact through Dudley who starts to change under a different mothering influence.

"Your Aunt Petunia at some point tries to kidnap Dudley and is imprisoned. Meanwhile, you and Dudley learn to work around and help Vernon with his Asperger's, and a special family connection springs up."

"And… my story would start in any way with these childhood happenings?" Harry asked tentatively.

"Yes," said Lily.

"... My friends wouldn't be in my Hogwarts house," Harry realized, frowning. "Neither would Ginny."

"That doesn't necessarily mean they wouldn't be a part of your life," Lily pointed out gently. "And you'd make new friends - and have new dates and loves. Actually, someone should have told you - any wizarding person is allowed up to two spouses."

"What?!" Harry's head shot up.

"Yes. Maximum two," said Lily, smoothly and matter of factly, putting her hands on her hips. "What, Harry? We're witches and wizards. We're Pagan. And two is the most logical, reasonable number."

Harry nodded, troubled and absent-minded. "So - I have to make the choice," he realized.

"... You do," Lily admitted.

With the broken soul's cries in his ears, Harry looked up at the doors.

* * *

In one timeline, Harry said, "If I were a Slytherin… it would be good to know more on the inside. To discover more about the Slytherin House I think I always wrongly hated."

And he took a deep breath, and walked through Esmeralda's door.

* * *

In one timeline, Harry said, "If I were a Ravenclaw… Ravenclaws are good, unobjectionable people but also intelligent high achievers, which would be useful."

And he took a deep breath, and walked through Anastasia's door.

* * *

In one timeline, Harry said, "If I were a Hufflepuff… Hufflepuffs are good people through and through, and they deserve a champion at last backing them up against bullies."

And he took a deep breath, and walked through Ingrid's door.

* * *

The divergences had happened. The chess pieces had been set.

The game was about to be played.

Time began to spin backwards with rapid color and speed - and in three separate timelines, the entire Harry Potter world changed.

And the story began again.

* * *

Author's Note: All three girls will be kept in this story. I will write alternating name-labeled chapters for each girl in turn. So first there will be Esmeralda One, then Anastasia One, then Ingrid One, etc. Starting from childhood and showing and novelizing all the changes there.

I'm planning on six pre-canon chapters for each girl. I want to really make sure I do a thorough job in showing these girls' differences, and six chapters was the fewest I could reasonably make it.


	2. Esmeralda One

Chapter One: Esmeralda One

"Oh, she's so cute!" Yvonne cooed, pinching Esmeralda Potter's cheeks. "What a lovely little girl!"

"Yes, yes," said Aunt Petunia, short and impatient.

They were in the suburban kitchen of Number Four, Privet Drive. Esmeralda was standing in front of Aunt Petunia's best friend, Yvonne, face deadpan and miserable as her cheeks were pinched. Around her all of Aunt Petunia's tea and bridge club afternoon housewife members were littered about the kitchen table. Esmeralda had been paraded out for her usual brief display for the women's benefit, the only little girl in the house, and if there was one thing she hated about all of Aunt Petunia's female friends coming over it was this.

She supposed everyone told her she was pretty, in a sense. Yes, she was dressed in tatty grey second-hand feminine clothes, sort of like an old spinster librarian, but the Dursleys pretended she was just rough with her things and not a burden on the family that they refused to buy anything worthwhile for. And she was nice looking - a pale, heart shaped face with high cheekbones, long shiny black hair, almond shaped bright green eyes, the lightning bolt scar on her forehead from the car crash that had killed her parents when she was a baby covered by a blunt 1960's fringe.

"All right, Esmeralda, you can go," said Aunt Petunia without looking at her, and Esmeralda was for once happy to escape with blessed relief to her cupboard. She had carefully closed the kitchen door behind her and was halfway to the closet underneath the staircase, her assigned bedroom despite the fact that there were extra actual bedrooms in the spacious house -

When she heard speaking come from behind her in the kitchen she had just come from, speaking that gave her pause.

"Have you been feeling better lately, Petunia?" Yvonne's voice. "You did say you've been… troubled."

Aunt Petunia sighed, and she did sound dissatisfied and even disturbed when she spoke next. "I don't know. I don't know what's wrong with me. I've been feeling so bored and restless… being inside this house all the time."

"You don't like the house?"

"No, it's a wonderful house! And I'm happy here! But sometimes I feel so empty I wish I could just leave. Not leave Vernon, or the home, but just… see what else is out there in the world for a little while. Vernon doesn't understand. He goes to his company firm director job every day, and he talks with people, and he sees things.

"It's… different for women."

"Only for women like us." A sorrowful sigh from someone else at the kitchen table. "Women who do it the right way. I feel it, too."

A heavy pause.

"I haven't told Vernon," said Aunt Petunia at last, her tone oddly… flat. "I don't know why. I haven't told him for reasons I can't even explain to myself. I just… haven't."

"No. It's not something to talk about with husbands," the other speaker agreed, warm and sympathetic. Another silence.

Esmeralda realized that she felt - incredibly - rather sorry for her Aunt Petunia. She had never seen her aunt in such a sympathetic light before. Granted, Aunt Petunia would still greet this with an acidic barb to her face. The Dursleys still didn't like Esmeralda for mostly unexplained reasons. But…

Esmeralda knew what was wrong, perhaps seeing the things that her aunt simply refused to see, and she knew why her aunt hadn't told her uncle how she was feeling.

Aunt Petunia didn't like being a housewife.

It made sense. Aunt Petunia was a sharp, intelligent, strong-minded woman just as surely as her family was traditionalist. She felt restless being confined to childrearing, housewife tea and bridge club meetings, and household chores. And she refused to tell her husband… because Uncle Vernon didn't want to be married to a career-woman. He was not that kind of a man.

It was an entire shift in paradigm, in worldview for Esmeralda. She promised herself she would never fall victim to that. In that moment, she swore rather hard and vicious to herself that even if she had to remain single, she would never do it "the right way." She would be a rebel, an independent, a career-woman, a woman outside the home.

She lifted her chin, rather proud of her decision.

Then more speaking came from the kitchen behind her, and she hurriedly straightened.

"I have an idea, Cheerfuls," said one woman wryly in the heavy silence. There were a few chuckles. "Let's go have a bath."

"... Come again?" said Aunt Petunia, deadpan and skeptical, and Esmeralda had to choke back a snort as she physically imagined her aunt's eyebrows rising over her steaming cup of tea.

"There's a lovely little bath-house in Surrey city that we could visit. It has Asian influences, but it's a wonderful place. The workers prepare a luxurious, hot, soaking bath and a face mask, some lotions, for customers. The customers get the full treatment, and they just get to soak in their separate tubs and talk to one another. The workers are all female, and they cater mostly to fellow women. It sounds odd, but it's really actually quite relaxing."

"A good place to detox," said Yvonne with bright interest, hopeful.

"Exactly! And we can all afford it, right?"

She had said the magic words in the climbing neighborhood of Little Whinging.

"All right," said Aunt Petunia tentatively, sounding interested. "Let's do it." And with squeaks of chairs and a round of excited chatter, Esmeralda heard them stand.

She hurriedly put her back up against the cupboard door, hands behind her back and sullen. Aunt Petunia would not want her friends to see that Esmeralda slept in a cupboard. Sure enough, when they all tramped out into the entryway, Aunt Petunia looked subtly relieved to see Esmeralda standing there and the cupboard door closed.

Then: "Dear," said one of Aunt Petunia's friends affectionately, "would you like to come?"

It took Esmeralda, who was never allowed anywhere extra and fun, a few seconds of looking around to realize the woman was talking to her. She blinked. "... Me?"

"Are we sure that's a good idea?" Aunt Petunia interrupted, frowning, skeptical. "She can be troublesome."

This was not quite the truth.

"Oh, come, Petunia. It's a girl's day out, after all." The woman smiled and winked at Esmeralda; a wide, delighted, hopeful smile at the idea of being allowed somewhere fun was slowly filling Esmeralda's face.

Aunt Petunia saw that face - and became expressionless. It was hard to read what she was thinking. At last, she said, "All right. It's a Saturday afternoon, and Dudley is out with Vernon. She can come."

Esmeralda resisted the urge to physically jump upward in excitement, forcibly tamping herself down. This was even better than being allowed home alone, or to wander Surrey! With a ducked head and a smile, she followed the women obediently out the door, across the green lawn beside the flower beds, towards the shiny cars parked around the driveway in the sunlight.

"Remember, dear, girl's days out are for fun," said the same woman warmly, walking beside Esmeralda. "Us girls have to stick together."

Esmeralda smirked. "I will remember that," she said with equal warmth.

And she would remember about girl's days out and women sticking together - just as surely as she would remember that she wanted to be independent, and not a housewife.

* * *

They drove up to a place in the city decorated like a spa, Seaborne Dreams, the sign complete with fanciful pink and blue bubbles. "Well, it's cute…" said Aunt Petunia tentatively in the car beside Esmeralda as they parked, as if wondering about this little venture.

They all got slowly out of their cars and, some of the women chatting, headed in a big group through the doors. The inside was surprisingly dark, cool, and dim. A woman at a little podium up at the front was standing waiting for them, just as if they were in a restaurant. She smiled and said, "How many? You pay up at the front here, and then go back behind me to the baths."

They paid and went through another pair of doors behind the podium, into a huge, long, echoing room, dark and cool, filled with women in tubs being attended to by female workers. The female customers chatted to one another from their separate tubs, lit by flickering candlelight and oddly glowing tubs.

Workers immediately came forward and led each member of the group to a separate bath. There was a little partition the customers could stand behind, get undressed, and wrap themselves in a long towel. Then they came out and watched their bath be prepared, an oddly relaxing, mesmerizing, graceful series of movements on the part of the female worker.

Esmeralda watched her own helper, a quietly smiling blonde woman, work the bath. She stood wrapped in her towel, shivering. She realized after a time that this place was dark and cool on purpose - dark to promote relaxation, cool to make the hot bath all that much more enjoyable.

First, she was given a steaming, warm cup of cooling mint and rose tea while she waited, loose leaf and wonderful. Then her bath was set to.

The hot water was poured into a traditional roll-top bath with a luxurious purple bath rug. Pink salt crystals were littered in the bottom of the bath to dissolve. Then a green tea bath bomb was added to the water, filling the crystalline bath with a softly glowing green color in the cool darkness, the pink salts dissolving almost instantly.

A relaxing nighttime blend of essential oils scent was then added in drops to the water, which by this point smelled absolutely divine.

Heart shaped candles were littered around the bath and softly lit, glowing against the green crystalline water. Dried rose petals were littered onto the surface of the green bath. A little copper incense burner was lit with incense nearby, its range just wide enough to encompass Esmeralda's bath in its warm scent. Finally, a hot stone was added for her feet, to relax them and keep them warm - this would be especially lovely after a hard day's work standing on one's feet, she thought, glancing at the grown women around her.

Finally, the woman turned to her. "You get in, and smooth back your hair," she said softly, still smiling gently. "I'm going to put a clay face mask on for the skin of your face, and after you get out of the tub and take off the mask, I have some gentle, scented face and body lotions for when you're finished with soaking."

Tentatively, Esmeralda got into the tub, draping the long towel over the head of the tub behind her, noticing a sponge placed nearby for her convenience. "For washing off any dead skin," the worker said helpfully.

Esmeralda looked down, and realized the clever green tea bath bomb had done its work - her body was completely obscured from view behind the glowing green in the darkness.

The woman sitting beside her tub was very gentle, feminine, and attendant as Esmeralda soaked and used the sponge, as the clay face mask was put on her face and she was allowed to lounge back in the tub. This made her oddly emotional - she was taking soft deep breaths, tensing and relaxing, and she realized she was near tears.

She couldn't remember ever feeling so well taken care of before. Her family certainly never treated her with this kind of gentle, pampering, luxurious femininity.

At last, she relaxed and looked around idly, beginning to enjoy herself as she lounged in the tub with the face mask, her long wet dark hair arching back behind her head. "Do you know," she mused, a little smile of amusement curling her lips, "I think I really enjoy this."

"Good. I am glad," said the worker beside her softly, smiling.

The next lesson: Esmeralda enjoyed femininity, luxury, and pampering. And she had come to associate good things with water, cool glowing colors, and dark dimness. This added textures to the other things she had learned about herself today: about being an independent woman and a certain amount of pride, and about girl's days out and women sticking together.

Warm and smiling wryly, half a smirk, Esmeralda had already begun to change.

Beside her a ways away, Aunt Petunia also seemed to be enjoying herself, lounging back smirking smugly. "This is very nice," she declared. "Every woman deserves this at the end of a long day." Her previous doubts had been blown away.

Some of her workers and fellow friends chuckled, and Aunt Petunia smiled.

The workers began talking and giggling to each other over the baths. Despite their giggly female grouping instinct, they gave off a very calm, sensible, serene atmosphere. Some of her friends were talking warmly, but Aunt Petunia was watching the workers and the hall layout, looking genuinely impressed.

When they had all gotten out, taken off their face masks, and put their scented lotions on behind the partitions before getting dressed again, Esmeralda felt wonderful. She felt pampered and warm and nice-smelling, her skin newly and wonderfully smooth and soft.

She was dressed like a poor old spinster librarian again, her Aunt Petunia neat in a flowery house-dress and quiet jewelry. Their baths were being drained and the dream was over, with the fragrant lotions and scents remaining to gently ease the transition and leave a pleasant lingering effect.

As they were leaving the hall, they all stopped in their tracks.

A woman who silently screamed big, old money had just breezed in with two attendants walking carefully behind her. She was wearing the gold and pearl chains, the big coats, the heavy makeup, the entire package. Even the way she carried herself was rather snobbish and elegant, her gold highlighted hair piled behind her head.

"Yes, wonderful as usual," she said idly, looking over her pre-prepared bath - which must have cost an extra fee - and she walked forward to use the partition. She passed by them without looking, and they carefully looked away and left the hall.

Immediately, out of earshot through the doors, the climbing housewives began hissing and giggling among themselves. Esmeralda skeptically found it all rather silly.

Aunt Petunia was more dignified. "This," she said, smirking with satisfaction and pride, lifting her chin at the place's association with herself, "is clearly a high class, high end kind of place." Seaborne Dreams was by now very high up in her mental hierarchy.

But something that was about to happen in the outside hall with the podium, sunlight streaming dimly through the blinded frontal windows - something very different in nature - would end up being just as important.

"I don't care how good you people are supposed to be -!"

"Ma'am, please -"

SLAM!

Esmeralda, Aunt Petunia, and their group looked around in surprise. A slightly unhinged ratty woman - showing the huge variety of clientele that visited here - was yelling at a worker out in the front hall. She had just swept an array of pamphlets off a side table and scattered them and their now-broken holder all over the floor.

"I am not paying for that travesty of service!" she snapped, eyes bulging, and she stormed out the double doors into the sunlight.

"Ma'am - ma'am, please don't go -" The worker the woman had been yelling at was near tears.

"Well, I never!" said one housewife, rather shocked -

But Aunt Petunia had strode forward calmly with steely eyes. She bent down, and quietly began helping the teary woman get everything in perfect working order again. Aunt Petunia was above all things bent on neatness, cleanliness, grace, and perfection. She had pristine composure and dignity.

Esmeralda couldn't help but admire her aunt for a moment.

"Some people wouldn't be happy if you hung them with a new rope," Aunt Petunia told the female worker calmly, with a single sneer of contempt toward the doors. "Don't you worry about it, it's a wonderful place and you did the best you could."

"Thank you," the woman sighed in relief; they stood as everything on the table was as it had once been. "You know." The woman smiled gratefully at Aunt Petunia. "You would make for an excellent worker here yourself. You have just the right kind of mentality and calm."

Cheerful and with a playful curl of her shoulder, she strode off.

Esmeralda's aunt's defense of Seaborne Dreams had had an unexpected result. Aunt Petunia paused in the aftermath, with an expression on her face that surprised Esmeralda - wide-eyed, surprised herself, half smiling, almost flattered.

She looked as if an idea had just come to her that she had never considered before.

* * *

On the drive home, it was just the two of them alone - Esmeralda and Aunt Petunia, Aunt Petunia in the driver's seat and Esmeralda beside her. They sat in silence for a time, not sure how to articulate this strange, wonderful experience that had just happened between them.

At last, Esmeralda risked breaking the silence. "That was a really nice place," she said seriously, looking carefully with concern over at her Aunt Petunia.

Aunt Petunia… smiled, to Esmeralda's eternal surprise, looking out over the drive ahead of her as if it held all of her daydreams and visions. "Yes," she admitted warmly. "Yes, it was." She sounded thoughtful, musing.

Then, the ultimate risk from Esmeralda: "... Can we… start doing pampering, girly things like that together? Sort of spa and bath activities?"

Before, the idea of asking to do anything with Aunt Petunia would have been anathema to Esmeralda. But today, her aunt had been… different. And the experience had been so enjoyable…

Aunt Petunia paused - and then agreed. "Yes," she decided. "Yes, we can. It would be nice, to have another girl to do things like that with, and to teach such things to."

"You really liked Seaborne Dreams, didn't you?" Esmeralda realized in surprise.

"Actually…" Aunt Petunia still gazed unseeingly out at the drive ahead of her. "It's got me thinking…"

But about what, she would not say. Aunt Petunia seemed to be thinking hard about Seaborne Dreams in a way she never had about anything before. So used to her aunt being one boring way, not even Esmeralda could suppose just what her Aunt Petunia would be giving such thought to.

But unbeknownst to Esmeralda, she was about to find out.

* * *

Author's Note: Major credit goes to - of all things - the ASMR channel WhispersRed and her video "Preparing You A Bath." Inspiration sometimes comes from the unlikeliest of places. Thank you, Emma!


	3. Anastasia One

Chapter Two: Anastasia One

The kitchen was huge and warm, made of soft golden yellows and honey oak wood. Countless child students stood at little counter workstations along the kitchen, laughing and talking over their various after-school baking projects. A great, excited chatter had filled the kitchen. Flour and chocolate were stained everywhere. The only student not conversing with those around her was a single shy girl in a corner, baking by herself.

She was dressed in ratty grey feminine second-hand clothes, rather like an old spinster librarian. She had a pale, heart-shaped face with high cheekbones, long dark red hair, sparkling almond shaped hazel eyes with surprisingly vivid expressiveness, and a blunt 1960's fringe to cover the lightning bolt scar on her forehead, which came from the car crash that had killed her parents when she was a baby. Her eyes aside, her expression was very reserved, and she baked quietly over her workstation.

The female baking teacher came over, a big curvy middle-aged woman with a warm manner, looking musing and thoughtful. Anastasia paused and looked up. "Anastasia Potter," said the woman thoughtfully. "You don't seem to be here to make any friends. Indeed, you hardly ever say anything to anyone at all. Why did you enroll in these after-school baking classes?"

"My… aunt and uncle enrolled me," said Anastasia, looking carefully down, knowing privately that this wasn't a real answer at all. "They wanted me to know how to make food. You know - being a girl and all."

It was a strange way of putting it to the untrained ear. Most children would have said 'they wanted me to have fun baking.' But Anastasia's bedroom in her spacious suburban house was a cupboard, the closet underneath the staircase, her chores were extensive, and Anastasia Potter was not most children.

"Well - let me give you a hand," said the teacher, smiling warmly.

And to Anastasia's eternal surprise, and growing warmth, the baking teacher spent personal time with her at her workstation that afternoon. She stood beside her and taught her things like how to knead dough, how to better mix ingredients, and where to experiment and where not to with recipes in the kitchen.

Serene and bright, she showed her things and a startled Anastasia nonetheless listened closely. She was not used to someone lavishing such… personal attention on her.

"I came over here, Anastasia, because you're the best in the class right now. It surprised me that you haven't talked to anyone yet." Anastasia's eyes widened. "You seem to have a bit of a sixth sense for taste, and a detailed eye for color and aesthetic. You really are quite good at this. You seem very teachable - so far, at least in this physical activity, you've had a wonderful, determined approach to learning."

Something unfamiliar filled Anastasia, swelling and expanding her chest. It took a few seconds for her to realize what it was. She felt accomplished - a wonderful burst of satisfaction and pride. The head of the baking class. Maybe to other people it wouldn't have been much, but to unexceptional Anastasia it was a start - a real, concrete compliment and accomplishment.

"You could stand to be a little less shy," said the teacher, smiling. "And if you applied this same approach to school learning, I really think you would do quite well."

It was true - there was no schooltime Dudley to pick on Anastasia here. No one here was aware of her family at all. And… maybe she could do more than she thought she could in school. Just maybe. This teacher didn't seem like the type to lie.

"Thank you, ma'am," said Anastasia proudly, smiling warmly, and that was the first moment she really came to appreciate teachers and learning. "I'll have to take your advice and try this kind of learning with book learning in school. You never know. Maybe it'll work."

"Very good," said the woman approvingly. Then she added teasingly: "And talk to the students a little already, will you?"

Anastasia ducked her head sheepishly, but unlike her aunt and uncle, the teacher didn't seem angry and somehow that made it better.

"Now. You still haven't looked through my recipe book and chosen the recipes you'll be learning yet. Let's take a look through my big book for some good recipes for you to work on as projects during these classes long-term."

So Anastasia stood thoughtfully over her teacher's shoulder as they paged through a big white binder full of countless laminated recipe pages together. In the end, Anastasia's choices fell into two categories: chocolate and coffee and hazelnut, but then also with an occasional burst of the wonderland fantastical.

She chose a winter fantasy wonderland cake, a Black Forest brüche do noel with real forest decorations, a hazelnut dacquoise centerpiece, an espresso martini cannoli, fantastical looking raspberry trifle terrine, sticky toffee caramel apple cake with mesmerizing caramel swirls and real fancifully shaped toffee decorations, salted peanut millionaire's shortbread with chocolate, coffee and amaretto kisses, wonderfully imaginative gingerbread cake haunted houses fit for Halloween, chocolate stars, chocolatey hazelnut Spanish windtorte, cappuccino creme brulës, and tuiles with chocolate mousse.

She was a little redhead with fanciful chocolate decoration recipes, and she was smiling by the end.

"This will be fun," she decided. "I think I'll enjoy this hobby."

"Very good," said the teacher, smiling. "Now, I'll leave you to it, then. Do try to be more social, yes? And give yourself a bit more credit for being capable of accomplishment."

Anastasia smiled warmly. "Yes, ma'am… Thank you." And she actually, sincerely meant it.

The woman walked away, leaving a newly re-energized and determined Anastasia to begin baking alongside her classmates. Slowly and cautiously, she made the occasional comment in their direction and was brought into their fold.

Anastasia had just become warmer and less shy. She had found satisfaction and pride in her own accomplishments and her own baking, formed more confidence in her own baking techniques and abilities, and she had already dedicated herself to trying to learn better and take that pride into her book-learning and school. She had come for the first time to appreciate lessons and teachers. Anastasia decided she was capable of being accomplished, and in the process she became so. She was even smiling more.

So it wasn't in the end the lessons that had started Anastasia's changes. It was the teacher.

* * *

The Dursley family plus their orphaned niece had just finished going over the dinner party script at their neat, boring suburban home that night before the guests arrived. Everyone was dressed, the dining table was set.

"Now." Uncle Vernon glared at Anastasia. "We're including you because you baked the dessert and it actually came out halfway decent, but don't embarrass us tonight. It's enough that we had to get you the new bloody clothes."

Anastasia did indeed have a whole new wardrobe fit for impressing guests: chic, classy, old-fashioned, and sophisticated. There was a bit of a black little vintage Chanel dress sort of look to her now. She wore delicate, dangling bracelets and her dark red hair was piled up behind her head. She smiled, feeling somehow smoother with her new look, which carried over even into everyday life.

"I'll do fine," she insisted. "Really, I will."

Uncle Vernon looked suspicious, but just then the doorbell rang. The guests were here.

Anastasia opened the door as Dudley greasily said, "May I take your coats, sir and ma'am?"

"It's very nice to meet you," Anastasia told them as she was supposed to, smiling prettily and a little bashfully.

It worked. The clients of Uncle Vernon's seemed entranced.

They all went into the lounge and chatted. Dudley was the center of attention a lot at first, but then the wife asked Anastasia, "And you? How are you doing in school?"

Anastasia smiled proudly. "Top marks. Straight A student." The clients looked impressed. Then Anastasia took a risk and went outside script. She smiled mischievously. "But am I supposed to say I don't talk about that?"

The comment was honest, spirited, and playful. The Dursleys looked panicked for a moment - but then the clients laughed.

"It looks like you have the full set," the husband chuckled. "The boisterous boy and the spirited but brilliant straight A girl."

Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon, and even Dudley all looked over at Anastasia… rather consideringly.

Anastasia had just learned an important lesson about herself. She could be charming and yet still be her honest, spirited, even playful self. And she knew something else: She had just secured her place getting nice things from the Dursleys and being included in their dinner parties.

They all went into the dining room for dinner, and afterwards the wife said, "Your cooking was delicious, Petunia, but am I right in detecting that chocolate hazelnut dessert was not yours? I even detected some coffee flavors inside it."

Aunt Petunia looked apologetic. "I'm sorry - my niece, Anastasia, she -" The Dursleys were wincing in preparation.

"Oh, no, it tasted divine! Such a creative design!" said the wife, surprised. "I'd eat it again! That really came from such a small girl?" She seemed impressed.

Aunt Petunia smiled like a shark, Dudley relaxed, and Uncle Vernon chuckled with great gusto. "My niece is very accomplished," he said. "Quite talented."

Anastasia smiled warmly, her eyes dancing playfully.

It was the first real compliment her uncle had ever paid her - even if he had done it to try to secure a business deal.

Anastasia had just found her niche - proud, accomplished, and charming yet spirited, warm, playful and honest. And she had discovered it all, her new sophisticated black outfits included, through the simple hobby of baking.

She may still sleep in a closet in a boring suburban house - but it was a start.

* * *

"Anastasia! Come on!"

Anastasia paused at the head of the hill - saw the house down below her filled with other children running around on the lawn. She beamed and sprinted down the hill toward the girl waiting for her, the sweet perfume of the grass in her nose.

"Thanks for inviting me to your birthday party!" she told the girl excitedly.

"No problem! We got to know each other through baking, and you seem really nice!" the girl said brightly.

The Dursleys had been improving in basic decency towards Anastasia lately. They hadn't demanded Dudley meet any of her baking friends so he could bully them, and they'd even let her come to this birthday party. They weren't exactly loving - but it was something.

As the cake was laid out on a clothed side table on the sunny lawn by the mother, and all the children sat around in the center to begin playing Duck Duck Goose, Anastasia sat in the midst of the warm, laughing group and smiled brightly as hard as she could.

Bright and interested, she dedicated herself to paying attention to her friends. She would be, she had decided, a good friend.

And so Anastasia's transformation towards a much more warm and playful, sophisticated and accomplished person had been achieved.

* * *

Author's Notes: Recipe credit goes to the Great British Baking Show, which I have watched way too many episodes of. Anastasia's story will be paced a bit differently than Ingrid's or Esmeralda's, because it's a different kind of story that doesn't stem from one day in the life of a parent, but rather from a slow change and collection of hobbies over time. Believe it or not, Anastasia does still have five more chapters to go.


	4. Ingrid One

Chapter Three: Ingrid One

When Uncle Vernon stormed home that evening, he was in rare form - in fury, irate. "The company is requiring I take a psychological evaluation!" he barked just within the doorway, eyes wide and harried, suit and tie a mess and briefcase still in his hand.

Aunt Petunia gasped, putting a hand over her mouth in horror, and she stood from the golden lamplight surrounding the living room sofa. Dudley looked up from his place in front of the cartoon-running television, his mouth hanging open.

Ingrid, curled up in a corner, looked up cautiously from underneath her fringe.

Ingrid Potter was the Dursleys' orphaned niece. Despite their own nice clothes, they dressed her in ragged grey second-hand feminine clothes, rather like an old spinster librarian. Nonetheless, she was pretty - a pale, heart shaped face with high cheekbones, long strawberry blonde hair, brilliant blue almond shaped eyes, and a blunt 1960's fringe to cover the scar on her forehead. It was in the shape of a lightning bolt; she had gotten it in the car crash that had killed her parents when she was a baby.

"What - what on earth - why?" said Aunt Petunia, utterly mystified.

"Apparently I yell at too many pansy employees, and they reported me for chronic stress!" Uncle Vernon spat, red-faced and panicked, perhaps in the process proving that the employees at his company had a point. "Grunnings Co is requiring that I have a psychological evaluation done, or I'm fired!"

"They wouldn't dare! After all you do for the company!" said Aunt Petunia, outraged.

"Apparently they would," Uncle Vernon spat darkly.

"Well." Aunt Petunia rallied herself, straightened her back and lifted her chin. "We'll all just have to go with you, that's all," she said proudly. "The whole family will go with you to this mind shrink in moral support. Because there is nothing wrong with you, Vernon. Absolutely nothing."

Great, Ingrid thought darkly. There was something for her to look forward to.

Nevertheless, Ingrid softened a bit internally despite herself when Uncle Vernon relaxed, looking grey, wan, and tired. Uncle Vernon didn't exactly deserve any sympathy, not after the way he usually treated her, but Ingrid felt some anyway. "... Thank you, Petunia," he said.

Aunt Petunia took one look at his face and turned to the two children. "Ingrid, Dudley," she said. "Go to your cupboard and your bedroom immediately."

"But -!" Dudley protested loudly.

"Now, please, sweet Duddy," Aunt Petunia cooed, smiling. Then she turned darkly to Ingrid and glared. "Go," she commanded in a harder voice.

As Ingrid retreated under several glares to her makeshift bedroom - the closet underneath the staircase, despite the fact that there were free bedrooms in the house - she knew she would hear Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon start up a long, late-night discussion out in the living room.

Recommending Uncle Vernon take a company psych evaluation. It was clever… but who on earth had that much nerve?

* * *

Everyone sat slowly down in chairs in the psychiatric office waiting room, all four of them, looking around warily.

But the office had a wonderful atmosphere. It had a huge blue fanciful fish tank full of colorful fish on one wall, and lots of cushy purple chairs littered around the office space. Dudley immediately ruined the calm atmosphere and the faint chiming music overhead by running around the office, yelling and slamming, disturbing the other patients.

Everyone else in the waiting room gave Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon bewildered looks as they looked on with fond smiles.

"Would you… like me to take him with me until after the appointment is over?"

A nurse who worked for the office had appeared, smiling uncertainly at Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia.

"No," said Aunt Petunia brusquely. "Take the girl." The unspoken finish Ingrid heard: I don't want to continue looking at her.

The nurse looked around, puzzled, to the quiet blonde girl sitting neatly beside her aunt and uncle. Then the nurse shrugged philosophically, apparently used to patients who didn't really make logical sense. "Come along, then," she told Ingrid, who stood and followed the nurse quietly through a door and into the nurse's private side space.

The door to the psychiatrist's office was in the same corner as one of the doors to the nurse's side space. Ingrid realized she could hear the meeting that was happening in there before Uncle Vernon's, and she quickly tuned it out.

The nurse's space was covered in wonderful, dark, detailed pencil drawings of skeletons and anatomical figures. They had a sort of morbid beauty to them.

"You like them?" the nurse asked, smiling. "Why don't you try drawing some of them?"

She sat Ingrid in a chair near the psychiatrist's office door and put a pencil and paper set in front of her.

"I… don't know how to draw," said Ingrid cautiously, looking up. "Not even life-like things… that my aunt and uncle would appreciate." Like the anatomy figures.

"Well, no one's good at first, are they?" said the slim young nurse, hands on her hips, smiling and all business. "Keep trying. You'll get it.

"Would you like to see my stethoscope? I have a few instruments for basic physical examination of patients." Her eyes sparked mischievously in delight at occupying a young girl. Ingrid smiled shyly despite herself.

Then Ingrid watched curiously as the nurse went over and took a long stethoscope out of a drawer. She knelt down in front of her, put the buds in Ingrid's ears, put the cold press to her own chest, and Ingrid jumped, brightening at last in true delight. She could hear the nurse's heartbeat.

"See?" The nurse smiled mischievously, and took the stethoscope away. "It's neat, isn't it?" She stood.

"So you just help people with their health problems all day long?" Ingrid asked wonderingly.

"Exactly," said the nurse. "Nursing is a healing practice."

"Healing… I like that," Ingrid decided. "How do I become a nurse?"

The nurse smiled. "Well, medical studies require a great deal of reading," she said, amused. "So you would have to be very good with books."

Ingrid nodded and looked down. "It's practice," she realized thoughtfully. "Like with drawing. Reading is all about practice, too."

She quietly bent over to her dark, morbid anatomical drawings and proceeded to sit in silence. That was the first time Ingrid tried to teach herself… patience, and hard work, in dealing with learning something new. Silently, she began the process of trying to draw something good.

The nurse smiled. "A bookworm in no time, no doubt," she said of Ingrid warmly, and she bent understandingly over to her studies at her own desk.

But Ingrid could hear what was going on within the psychiatrist's office, quite accidentally - and she listened in despite herself when she began to hear the booms of Uncle Vernon's naturally loud voice from within the psychiatrist's office. Carefully looking up at the drawings on the wall and sketching, Ingrid nonetheless listened hard.

What would a psychiatric evaluation with Vernon Dursley be like?

"Mr Dursley. How are you?" The female psychiatrist could be heard to start out politely.

"Perfectly fine! I don't need a bloody mind shrink!" Uncle Vernon barked, and unseen, Ingrid winced.

"Really? And what makes you think that?" The psychiatrist was good - she sounded calm, even politely curious. And she had gotten Uncle Vernon talking on his favorite thing: himself.

"I lead a perfectly functional life! I have a wife, children, a suburban home, a company job!"

"How is your social life?"

Uncle Vernon sputtered, blustered, and then rallied. "Fine! I host dinner parties! Regularly!"

"And how do you prepare for them? What are they like for you?"

So Uncle Vernon began listing it all off proudly: his set social script for each and every dinner party written up in excruciating detail, his love for talking about himself and his own thoughts and opinions, the materialistic but socially savvy way he judged people.

"And when you can't read someone? If you think they might be joking with you?" the psychiatrist asked. "How good are you with that?"

Ingrid paused in surprise. She could hear it as well as the psychiatrist could - a sore point had just been hit.

"If they make fun of me, they're completely bloody useless to me!"

"And would you say that to their face?"

"Of course!"

"But don't you make it a great point to worry about what other people think? Haven't you just told me that? Isn't that the reasoning behind your sense-making job and your scripts?"

Even Uncle Vernon spluttered - and then paused a little. "Wh… what?"

"Let me list off some things I have noticed from you, Mr Dursley," said the psychiatrist with now ruthless efficiency. "You have scripts for dinner parties because you have difficulty naturally understanding the way others think and feel, in unpredictable social situations. This is why you are obsessively interested in your own thoughts and opinions and in talking at someone rather than with them - because on the subjects you know, you are safe. I have noticed in person that though your voice is deep and loud, you have very little voice inflection.

"You hate certain unusual color combinations or unusual fashion trends. Despite this, you have accumulated an absurd number of facts about them, in order so that you can not only properly hate them but properly discuss why you do. Even brown shoes with a black suit is bound to bother you. You fixate on judging people by their car brand, another thing you know an absurd amount of information about, I think because you're not sure how to judge them on any other merits.

"You have an innate fear of anyone whose intentions you cannot expertly read. You say things with no thought to emotional impact on the listener - even to the point of seeming narcissistic, because whatever comes to your mind is said out loud. You miss jokes and people making fun of you, they go right over your head. You argue minute details, and you have a very black and white outlook on life. There is only one way for you, the traditional and right way. When something acts out of this order, it causes you anxiety, which leads to the fits of rage you were reported in here for.

"Despite your claim that you do dinner parties, those are mostly on a client basis. It is your wife who has the local friends. You befriend none of your coworkers. Outside of work and a spouse, you do not really seem to have a social life at all.

"Tell me about your routines, Mr Dursley." The command was sudden and abrupt, snapping both the secret and the open listener out of a kind mystified, horrified trance. "How… detailed are they?"

"I… well, I wake up to go to work at the same time every day. I get dressed and pick out a work suit and tie -"

"You have a set of suits and ties specifically dedicated to work?"

"Well - well - that's not unusual!"

"Not in isolation. Continue." The psychiatrist had by now become cold, crisp, and to the point.

"I… at exactly half past eight, I head downstairs with my briefcase to go to work, without breakfast."

"Do you wait for the exact minute to come on your watch before heading downstairs?"

"... Yes?"

"Your shoes - do you make sure they always match your suit? You must have shoe sets specifically for this purpose with your color sensitivity, yes?"

"Don't - don't you want to hear about the rest of my day?"

"Is it all exactly that regimented and scheduled?"

"I - I - well - yes," Uncle Vernon admitted.

"And do you find that… comforting?"

"This is ridiculous! I DO NOT NEED A BLOODY MIND SHRINK!" Uncle Vernon barked, and Ingrid jumped as he lost his temper completely. He stormed toward the office door in great, thundering jolts. Uncle Vernon was not a small man.

And then the psychiatrist called from behind him:

"Mr Dursley, I believe you have undiagnosed adult Asperger's Syndrome!"

The thundering footsteps stopped.

"... What?" And for once, Uncle Vernon seemed - openly wounded, aghast.

"Your orderliness. It's a way to combat your constant social fears and anxieties with things you don't understand, things that do not seem 'normal' to you," said the psychiatrist gently. "They scare you, so you try to rationalize 'fixing' them -"

"I do not need to hear this!" But Uncle Vernon's voice was trembling, scared.

"What you need is to see the feelings of others and how your words and actions affect them. You may really be alienating people who only seem strange to you, people who have in actuality done nothing wrong. This is exactly the thing people with Asperger's can't manage on their own, without treatment. You seem self centered, but it's only because you understand yourselves yet socially you have difficulty in understanding the feelings of others. This is another cause of fear and anxiety for you.

"Luckily, you also tend to have an obsession with facts and information, with details, and once involved in something you have mental difficulty with letting it go. I believe this will be the case for you, Mr Dursley, which is why I will not demand that you accept treatment immediately. Treatment would involve both behavioral therapy and mood stabilizer and antipsychotic medications, but let's not think about that right now. I want you instead… to think about what I have said."

"They were not right!" Ingrid jumped again at the sudden explosion from Uncle Vernon. But she frowned as she realized she could hear his voice shaking. "All the people who made fun of me in school… They weren't right…"

"... There is nothing wrong with your intellect, Mr Dursley. You may be quite capable and brilliant," said the psychiatrist softly, gently. "But I'm going to have to diagnose you. You are still on the autism spectrum.

"And you are exactly in the middle of one of the generations who mostly went without treatment."

There was complete silence within the psychiatrist's office for a few minutes. Ingrid listened anxiously - and then realized she wasn't going to hear any sound.

Uncle Vernon had been - defeated, silenced - and it was… oddly sad, from such a huge if intimidating and neurotic figure in her younger childhood.

Quietly, as she did everything, Ingrid in her own way felt for the first time warm sympathy and compassion towards the way she saw her uncle. She had found a new heart within her for the eccentric, the ill, the troubled, and the sick. Silently, she nonetheless felt tender-hearted sympathy and understanding, and it lent shades to her single-minded patience and determination in mastering the new hobbies and the nursing, healing goal set before her.

Ingrid had become both quiet and warmly caring - towards all, but especially her uncle. This change and realization of hers would have a lingering effect.

She wondered in the back of her mind if the psychiatrist was right - if the stunned silent Uncle Vernon really would be unable to let this new obsession go, and really would seek treatment.

* * *

Author's Notes: Credit goes to the book "Adult Asperger's Syndrome: The Essential Guide" by Dr Kenneth Roberson. A brief, digestible, and interesting read that was my biggest (though not only) source of information. For all the more technically knowledgeable than me, I am also aware that actual screening is often more extensive than this. But I needed this to be one session with Ingrid present in order for the story to do what I wanted it to do. A more extensive screening would also have meant spending even more time in the pre-Hogwarts era than we already are, which just seemed unnecessary.

Call the Midwife was also a small inspiration for the nurse part of this chapter.

I may take a couple of days' break after writing this, which probably just means five or so days of wait instead of the usual three to four.


	5. Esmeralda Two

Chapter Four: Esmeralda Two

Petunia announced it over her and her husband's evening tea a couple of nights after the bath-house visit. They were sitting in the living room together, in the circle of glowing golden lamplight, after the children had gone to bed. Petunia was frowning to herself, wondering, trying to figure out how to word this. Unusually for her in her marriage - she was typically the dominant one - this would have to be done… carefully.

"What's wrong, Petunia?" Vernon asked curiously. "You've seemed distracted for days now."

Petunia had indeed been giving an inordinate amount of thought to her new idea. Testing it out in her mind, making sure it was what she really wanted, even trying to talk herself out of it.

But it had been no use. She did want it. She knew that for certain now.

"I would like to work," she announced at last, deciding firmly that honesty was the best thing for it. "At a bathhouse. As a side thing to my duties in the home," she added, trying to soften the blow despite herself.

Vernon looked so shocked and disbelieving that Petunia almost winced at the predictability of it.

"A… a place for prostitutes?!" he finally demanded, spluttering, red-faced.

"No! Not a place for prostitutes!" Petunia snapped irritably, irrationally defensive of Seaborne Dreams considering she had only visited there once. "It's not like that at all. It's not a place for sex workers. Let me explain."

And she told him the whole story - about the entire afternoon.

"And - that girl -" He meant Esmeralda. Vernon's eyes had narrowed. "She didn't think to tell me about any of this? Being shifty and secretive, was she?"

"Oh, don't blame the girl, Vernon. I told her I was thinking of something to do with the place. It was on me to tell you," said Petunia absently, brushing away the quite frankly stupid idea of punishing the girl of all people. For once, Esmeralda hadn't done anything.

Vernon relaxed. "Why wouldn't you tell me? Aren't you happy here?" He sounded wounded.

"I'm very happy with my home," said Petunia plaintively, trying to get him to understand. "I just knew you'd think the worst - and it's not true, I'm very happy here and I'm very happy with my family. I just… want to work."

It frustrated her - that he couldn't understand, that she didn't have the right words.

Vernon's face darkened. "We're quite well on money. No wife of mine needs to work," he growled defensively. "If you need me to start taking on extra clients -"

"No, that's not it at all!" said Petunia hurriedly. "It's - think of it as a hobby. A way to make new friends, do fun things outside the home."

Vernon looked skeptical at the idea of the bathhouse being fun, and Petunia bristled despite herself.

"And you… won't neglect your duties here?"

"Of course not! I'm still the wife and I'm still the mother!" said Petunia indignantly. Really, there was no need to accuse her of being a bad mother! She felt torn enough on this as it was!

Vernon's small dark eyes were working in thought. Finally he said slowly, "... It sounds like a strange place. Are you sure that's where you want to choose to go? If you really just want to go out, don't you, why not settle on something more… appropriate?"

He was choosing his words delicately now. Petunia held the upper hand once more. She straightened her back and lifted her chin, realizing she felt more comfortable in this role.

"It's a very appropriate place," she said stiffly. "As I said, it's like a spa, it's all female, and plenty of very wealthy women visit there. You never know," she said, sharp-eyed, a new idea coming to her, "I could find you more clients. We could finally get that Spanish summer home we've always wanted."

It wasn't at all why she wanted to work at Seaborne Dreams. But Vernon didn't have to know that.

Vernon paused - and just like that he was sold. Tentatively, he agreed, "All right… it makes sense… That's brilliant!" And suddenly he smiled sharply. "You have a sophisticated female hobby at a spa-like place outside the home, and secretly we pull in more clients."

His appropriate narrative script was set. This only made logical sense, when looked at in that way.

"Very well," he said, and Petunia felt oddly like she'd just asked him for permission, something she had a strange problem with. "That sounds like a fine idea."

But Petunia could sense it, could see it in the subtleties of his face. Vernon still held some reservations about the 'strangeness' of Seaborne Dreams - a bit of reluctance, a hint of suspicion.

He didn't want to disagree with her openly. But he didn't agree with her decision, not entirely, though he accepted the technicalities and trappings surrounding it.

He could stomach her doing a 'small side job' outside the home. But he just couldn't stomach the idea of her working at an odd alternative bathhouse filled with glowing green bath bombs, crystalline baths, shadows, and flickering candlelight. That last bit was almost too much for him. Almost.

And Petunia didn't know how to talk him out of that. Because in a private, secret part of her mind that she would rarely admit to even to herself, she knew that at the idea of working in dreamy, darkly romantic, watery and artistic Seaborne Dreams…

She had suddenly felt less inferior to her more magical, tragically dead, beautifully glamorous and nauseatingly perfect baby sister.

* * *

And so Petunia started work at Seaborne Dreams.

She was a little alarmed the first day. They just gave her a uniform, told her to sanitize her hands, and said, "You'll be shadowing someone at a station today." The manager blinked at her matter of factly out in the hall with the podium.

"Oh… Okay!" Petunia's eyes were wide, a bit harried, the grey and green skirt and blouse uniform in her arms. Then she straightened and cleared her throat. "Okay," she said, a bit more dignified.

The woman's lips quirked upward in slight amusement, but she walked away.

Petunia went into the side restroom, got dressed in a stall, and sanitized her hands very carefully. Some people called her cleanliness an obsession, but she preferred to think of it as a healthy phobia of germs.

She came out, and followed the smiling worker she was paired with through the doors and out into the long, dark, echoing hall. Suddenly, through the doors, a great and strange expanse had been laid out before Petunia, and she felt a shot of nervous excitement as the sounds of the bathhouse grew around her.

"Now," said the woman, kneeling down beside her station, "I am going to show you how to prepare the baths."

The preparing the bath turned out to be the easy part. A series of slow, graceful, precise and silent almost cleaning movements. Petunia helped the woman beside her, following her lead with silent, calm dignity and reserve, and it all went well.

The really hard part came afterward.

"You have to be attendant," said the woman Petunia was shadowing in gentle explanation. "Quiet and attendant."

Nervous, Petunia knelt down beside the bath there on her first day. "How… how are you?" she asked the woman in the tub, smiling anxiously, and she nearly jumped and winced as the loud sound of her voice echoed out around her.

She felt like a rather severe clodhopping elephant in this quiet, mystical place.

But the woman in the tub smiled gratefully. "Very well, thank you," she said understandingly. "Everyone has a first day."

Petunia blushed, but felt relieved despite herself.

"You'll learn," said Petunia's coworker positively with a gentle smile. "It's all about having a calming bedside manner. Soon this whole work atmosphere will be relaxing you, too. It's quite good for the blood pressure on the worker as well, once you've gotten used to it."

And over the following days - interestingly, Petunia found this to be true.

She spent her days doing relaxing movements over wealthy people in a watery, dark, artistic setting. "It's a good job," Petunia told the coworker at the next station over one day, smiling.

Petunia had found she was actually supposed to talk to her coworkers far more than to any of her clients. She hadn't told Vernon this and it made her feel guilty.

"Really? We thought you didn't like us!" her coworker admitted, grinning, refreshingly unoffended in a way a climbing Privet Drive housewife would never have been.

"You? I spend more time with you than with my old friends!" They shared a giggle, Petunia feeling a bit giddy - at the combination of female connection and the rather thrilling atmosphere. "Though you are odd, imaginative, alternative little things," said Petunia with wry skepticism, good-natured amusement, a bit of exasperation.

"You are a very dignified, traditional, upright sort of person. But don't worry, we're working on that." Petunia was about to open her mouth heatedly, but then she saw her coworker's eyes dancing mischievously in a joke and she closed her mouth again, smiling a little. "Come on, you can't tell me you don't even get a little excited? With the secret, the forbidden, the not understood?"

Petunia thought of the secret thrill she got whenever newfangled things and oddities were discussed, and she pursed her lips primly. "That is not for me to say," she said, giving nothing away.

But the other woman giggled. "I knew it!" she said triumphantly. "Look, we were wondering, would you like to go out with some of us this weekend? We're all going shopping in town together."

Petunia's eyes widened in wonder and surprise. It would be rude to refuse, wouldn't it? That was how she justified it to herself consciously. "That… that would be wonderful!" she said enthusiastically, and they shared another warm and wonderful giggle there in the magical, steamy hall.

And so on Saturday, Petunia went into town with her coworkers after work. She took a deep breath, trailing down that city sidewalk after her new friends in their strange getups. Cars honked and sped past, a breeze blew along the city street, chatter and sirens filled the air around her. She was in a breezy, flowery red dress with styled blonde hair and a brown over the shoulder purse.

She felt a strange burst of excitement at this, her new life.

She looked down and stopped in her tracks. The other women were about to go into a crystal shop. They stopped and looked back at her as she stood frozen and torn.

"Come on, Petunia!" one of them called. "Live a little!"

And that made Petunia remember something - her secret feeling, watching Lily at Hogwarts growing up, that she had never really lived at all.

Defensive, she rallied. "Come on, Petunia, buck up, it's just a crystal shop," she muttered to herself, though she knew her husband wouldn't see it that way… But really, she was tired of asking her husband for permission to do things! "I'm coming!" she called, and marched determinedly into the crystal shop after them.

"Our work in progress," one coworker said to another, smiling and amused, as they walked into the dim, gleaming city corner shop full of crystals.

Petunia never mentioned any of this to Vernon, and it again made her feel oddly guilty.

"How was work today?" he said from behind the evening paper in the living room when she got home after work the following Monday. Petunia paused in the open doorway, still in grey and green skirt uniform, her dark blue suede trench coat on over it.

She'd listened to her new friends talk for a long time and in great detail about herbal tea remedies, Picasso paintings, and colorful 1960's mod dresses. She flashed back to it in her head.

"Oh, fine," she said, faux casual, hanging up her coat, and she told him nothing - nothing at all. "They say I'm a good worker."

That, at least, was the truth.

I'm not lying to him if I'm just not saying everything that happened, she told herself, and she didn't entirely believe herself even then.

* * *

Esmeralda and Petunia, meanwhile, had indeed begun doing pampering, girly spa and bath activities together on the afternoons Petunia had off from work.

Esmeralda was lounging in the bath in the fancy white and marble upstairs bathroom one example evening, and Petunia was painting her nails, showing her how to paint her nails pink. Esmeralda had a face mask on as she lounged in the tub.

"It's not just painting," Petunia was saying informatively. "Manicures and pedicures can be incredibly relaxing as well - having someone take care of your hands and feet, file and make your nails and cuticles all nice and pretty.

"I must say, after I'd only had the one son, I never thought I'd get to do this with someone," she added thoughtfully over the nails.

Esmeralda grinned. "Can you imagine how confused Uncle Vernon and Dudley would be if they saw us right now?!" She seemed to delight in this.

Petunia chuckled despite herself and Esmeralda giggled. They shared a girlish laugh, there in the bath together giving each other spa treatments.

Esmeralda, Petunia could admit to herself… wasn't actually so bad, when one paid attention to her.

On a different day, Petunia had stood Esmeralda in front of her in the kitchen, Petunia's hands on her hips. Esmeralda looked sullen and hesitant.

Suddenly, Dudley stormed in and shoved into Esmeralda, smirking. Esmeralda yelped and stumbled, genuine pain crossing her face.

"Dudley, you really must stop teasing Esmeralda!" Petunia scolded, and both children paused in surprise. "I know you don't actually beat her up, but you shove into her, pull her hair, and I know you tease her at school! You really must cut it out, you two are closer to becoming grownups now!"

She was snapping, rather and unusually severe. Dudley just froze, staring in utter surprise.

Petunia turned to Esmeralda. "I'm giving you one of the spare upstairs bedrooms," she said. "I've been giving you lots of new spa and bath materials, and it would be completely unreasonable and highly unsanitary for you to leave them in your cupboard. You must have a bedroom."

Her tone was flat, but a huge, slow smile of wondrous delight filled Esmeralda's face. Petunia felt a twinge of guilt she tried hard to suppress, but it didn't exactly work.

"I'll be waiting in the closest bedroom to the staircase," said Petunia, walking away. "Bring your things up there."

Later, as Petunia stood watching Esmeralda spread her sparse belongings out around her new upstairs bedroom, Esmeralda said quietly, "... You know. If you enforce that with Dudley, I'll be able to make friends at school now."

She looked up at Aunt Petunia.

"Thanks," she said seriously.

A couple of weeks later, Petunia and Esmeralda were gathered around a record player in the living room together, Esmeralda lounging back in an armchair smirking. With her new gains in the household, her new lessons in spa treatments, and her new freedom while her aunt was at work during the day, she had changed further: Become a more confident, smooth, smirking, feminine and proud girl.

Vernon stomped in - it was a weekend - and his eyes narrowed. "What are you two doing?" he demanded, and Esmeralda straightened, frowning cautiously.

Esmeralda was still afraid of her uncle. How could Petunia not have seen that before?

What else had she been missing?

"I am introducing Esmeralda to classical novels and music, as well as cooking French gourmet cuisine," said Petunia proudly. "As an addition to our spa days."

Bright and compassionate, trying with effort to be a good friend-sister figure, Esmeralda said with cautious eagerness, "It's turned out to be a lot of fun! I'm sharing some of my classical novels and French meals with my new friends at school."

But Vernon's eyes were still narrowed. "Hmph," he said, and stomped flat-footed out of the room.

Both women realized uneasily that Vernon was just as suspicious of their new connection as he was of Petunia's new job.


	6. Anastasia Two

Chapter Five: Anastasia Two

Chatter filled the large yellow kitchen. Anastasia was beaming as she talked excitedly with her nearby friends in the baking class. An important announcement was going to be made today and nobody knew what it was.

Speculation was running rampant.

"Do you know what she's going to tell us…?"

"No, neither do I -!"

"All right, everyone quiet down and listen please!" the curvy middle-aged teacher called from the front. An expectant, excited silence fell.

"We are going to have a baking competition among the people of this class," said the teacher, smiling, to several excited, hissing whispers. "Each baker will bake on their own, competing alongside their classmates for who can craft the best dessert, as judged by me!" She beamed. "I get the fun job. I'll be taste testing the desserts at the end.

"It will be a single day-long competition. The main part of the competition will exist on a Saturday afternoon, right here in this kitchen, a few weeks from today.

"Now, there is only one other rule. Since you are children, any baker can in fact call in outside help for this competition. So plan now."

She clapped her hands once to release them and loud, excited shouts of conversation immediately rang out among Anastasia's classmates again.

"My sister knows a lot about baking, I could ask her!"

"I'll be asking my parents!"

"My friend Susanne…"

Anastasia listened to everyone around her, frowning. Everyone else seemed to be asking families or friends for their help. But outside her baking class, since Dudley picked on her in school, the only people she knew to ask for help…

Were the Dursleys.

Well, she thought, uneasy despite herself. This would be interesting.

* * *

Anastasia stood hesitantly in the doorway of the suburban kitchen at Number Four, Privet Drive. She was taking deep breaths, trying to get up the nerve to ask what she was about to ask.

The Dursleys were going to make fun of her, she just knew it.

Uncle Vernon was sitting at the table reading the paper. Dudley was banging the table and making a loud racket with some of his soldier toys. Aunt Petunia was wiping down the kitchen counters after lunch.

At last, Uncle Vernon looked up, and they all turned around to her, puzzled.

"Well, girl!" Uncle Vernon barked brusquely, and Anastasia jumped. "What is it?"

"Yeah, usually I'm the one standing staring off into space blankly with my mouth open," said large and rather dim Dudley, with both a tone of surprise and remarkable self-awareness.

"Out with it," said Aunt Petunia sharply, hands on her hips and eyes narrowed in a no-nonsense sort of way.

"My… class is having a baking competition… at our usual kitchen among class members one Saturday afternoon… in about three weeks," said Anastasia slowly.

"Well then you'd better do well! Reflect on the family!" Uncle Vernon barked.

"See, that's the thing… The students are allowed outside help for this baking competition, and everyone else is bringing some - family, friends, that sort of thing," Anastasia admitted slowly. "And if you guys don't help… I'll be the only one in the class who hadn't brought anybody. So no matter how well I do, everybody will still… talk."

She finished, tentative.

"And there's only so much I can do for the competition," she finished in a silence she was not sure how to read, "... if I'm the only one on my own."

Another pause. Then the Dursleys rallied, puffing up -

And they totally surprised their niece.

"Well, we'll just have to come along and help you then!" Uncle Vernon thundered, slamming his hand with the paper down on the kitchen table.

"Quite right. I am an excellent baker," Aunt Petunia sniffed primly. "We'll win for certain. And we're practicing beforehand." She glared at Anastasia as if this was somehow a punishment.

"O… Okay," said Anastasia, totally stunned, and for once in the pleasant way.

"Cool! A competition! Can I throw cake at the other bakers?" Dudley asked eagerly.

"No," said Aunt Petunia and Anastasia in a hard tone at the same time, Aunt Petunia dignified and Anastasia alarmed. (Those people were her only friends.)

Dudley slumped, pouting.

"Very well. The family will all work hard to look good together, just like we do at dinner parties," said Uncle Vernon firmly. "We start practice immediately, and we all get it done together."

"Come with me," Aunt Petunia told Anastasia, and she walked away without looking back. "I'm showing you around the parts of this kitchen you haven't memorized yet."

Anastasia paused a second longer, still surprised -

"What on earth's the matter with you, girl?" Uncle Vernon demanded, and Dudley was sniggering at her expression.

"N-nothing," said Anastasia, recovering with effort. She slowly beamed… and ran after Aunt Petunia into the depths of the Dursley kitchen. "Coming!"

And so the family baking competition had been settled.

"We support each other in this family," Uncle Vernon said stoutly, nodding to himself in the aftermath, as any proper head of the family would. Dudley nodded, parroting him but also from his video gaming naturally competitive.

Anastasia didn't miss these last words - nor that she had for the first time been included supportively in 'this family.'

It made her feel oddly warm, almost openly emotional.

* * *

The following days at home with the Dursleys were a chaos of baking practice.

One afternoon, Dudley suddenly threw a spurt of flour in Anastasia's face. He snickered as Anastasia froze in the center of the Dursleys' kitchen - then yelped as she grinned, grabbed a wad of flour, and threw it back at him.

"Oh, for goodness sakes, stop it!" Aunt Petunia wailed despairingly in the middle of her horribly messy kitchen.

But one thing the Dursleys were teaching Anastasia was a keen, playful, humorous sense of competition. (Well, the competition came from them. The humor came from her reaction to them.) She was much more of a fighter, more competitive and warm and spirited, than she used to be.

And she wasn't ready to stop throwing flour in the middle of their now-misty part of the kitchen anymore than Dudley was. It was still a little incredible, but she and her bully at school were giggling and tossing flour at each other.

"What the hell kinds of directions are these?" Uncle Vernon was saying flatly, looking in bewilderment at a recipe on the counter. ("Language!" Aunt Petunia wailed in a similar tone of despair.) "Sift the flour. What the bloody hell does -? This thing needs diagrams! That's what building plans have!" he said with fierce indignation, as he sold drills for household use at his company. "They have diagrams!"

"It would make cooking much easier," Anastasia admitted matter of factly, looking around from her fight - turning back to glare flatly at Dudley as he threw more flour at her back and then sniggered. The two of them were now practically covered in white.

"Everyone listen up!" Aunt Petunia commanded sharply, in her Mother Tone, hands on her hips, deciding to become intimidating instead, and everyone straightened in instinctive, nervous silence to listen. "We can't afford to doddle or lose focus! What is our goal?"

There was no question. "To win the baking competition!" they all said.

"And what does that take?"

"Practice," Dudley suggested.

"Exactly! So let's get to it!" Aunt Petunia snapped, and she turned all-business back to the kitchen.

The other thing the Dursleys were teaching Anastasia: Firm, fierce dedication to accomplishment. Not for someone else, but for her own pride.

Another thing that was happening had surprised everyone, but no one in the family was talking about it.

Anastasia and the Dursleys… were bonding. The dinner party facade - it was no longer quite as much a facade as it used to be.

* * *

All the different groups of family and friends stood in a line along the yellow kitchen counter the afternoon of the competition. Loud, excited chatter and shouting was all around her and as she looked around the big, warm, crowded kitchen, Anastasia felt a great leap of excitement.

Uncle Vernon was eyeing the competition. "We'll be okay," he said slowly and quietly, like this was a deadly serious race. Then his eyes narrowed and he pointed. "Better watch that family," he muttered. "They look shifty."

"Right," said Aunt Petunia, seriously and worriedly.

Anastasia smiled in fond, exasperated amusement at her aunt and uncle. Deep down, though - the competition in the air had left her own stomach leaping in excitement, too.

One of Anastasia's friends came over and Dudley suddenly stepped in between them, his face thunderous. Anastasia's stomach dropped and became cold, and her friend stopped, her smile faltering.

Oh God. Bringing the Dursleys here, Anastasia thought in horror. What a terrible, stupid idea. The full weight and potential of what she had just done finally hit her. Why hadn't she thought…?

But what Dudley said next surprised them all. "Unless you have a good reason for being here," he growled, "you can clear out against hurting my sister." His massive bulk was blocking Anastasia from harm.

Anastasia stared in surprise at Dudley's back, oddly touched.

"Trying to sabotage the competition, are you?" Uncle Vernon boomed.

"W… well…" The girl looked around in bewilderment at Anastasia's straight-laced, upper crust, deadly serious and glaring family.

Anastasia smiled. "Relax, guys," she half-laughed. "Just a friend. Not the sabotaging kind," she added in humor. She ran around Dudley to hug her friend, trying to get her to relax. "My family is very determined to win," she told her friend, leaning back to smile into her face, and her friend laughed.

"Well - nothing wrong with that. I must say, I had wondered about your family, but you all seem very supportive and you look good together. It's good they're taking a hobby of yours so seriously," said the girl.

All four family members froze in surprise - and Anastasia turned slowly around thoughtfully to the Dursleys.

In their own weird way… they had kind of just proven they cared. And maybe all families were a little bit odd.

The Dursleys rallied, trying to remain dignified. "Well," said Uncle Vernon. "Of course. Right thing to do," he added gruffly, looking away, but Anastasia was almost certain for a second that this was hiding another, softer emotion.

Uncle Vernon… had become fond of Anastasia.

Aunt Petunia straightened. "We should - get going," she told Anastasia meaningfully, a bit stiff and discomfited despite herself.

Anastasia turned back to her friend and smiled warmly. "You're right," she said belatedly. "It is good."

She couldn't read the Dursleys' expression behind her, but they were oddly silent.

"May I have your attention, please?!" the teacher called. Anastasia's friend scampered back to her place and Anastasia went to stand with the Dursleys.

"If we lose, we're complaining," Aunt Petunia muttered craftily into Anastasia's ear at the last second.

"What -?!" Anastasia yelped.

"Shh!" Aunt Petunia whispered, and she straightened as if nothing had happened.

The teacher gave them an odd look, and the Dursleys gave their best winning dinner party smiles. Anastasia smiled rather wearily in their midst. The teacher gave them an odd look, but she turned away to continue talking.

"You all have four hours to bake whatever recipe you have chosen!" the teacher called. "No group may help another group! On my count. Three - two - one - GO!"

And Anastasia and the Dursleys burst into a flurry of carefully planned action. Carefully planned - because of course, it was the Dursleys.

"Anastasia and I take the wet, Vernon and Dudley take the dry!" Aunt Petunia commanded. "As we planned - FLOUR!"

Most other people were having fun laughing, but Anastasia and her family were a merciless assembly line of efficiency. They had planned their timing down to the very last minute. It was interesting - being a part of that competitive family, having her movements flow around everyone else's so smoothly, being united fiercely in a common goal.

Anastasia felt in the back of her mind like she was a part of something - something she couldn't define. It wasn't the happy, easygoing laughter of most families.

But it was a family, nonetheless.

The other families had been giving them and their work station genuinely impressed looks, but when the teacher called, "TIME!" the family had just finished and they suddenly jumped back with nervousness. The assembly line gone, anxiety filled Anastasia, irrational anxiety. She flashed back to years of silently never quite feeling good enough when it came to being capable of great strides and impressive feats.

What if they not only lost - what if they did horribly? And - she suddenly hated that this was a terrifying thought - what if the Dursleys and her new friends suddenly lost interest in her again?

The teacher smiled warmly, going along the line, tasting each dessert and making comments. Finally, she arrived at Anastasia's station. They had made the hazelnut dacquoise centerpiece, at Aunt Petunia's decision - great, decorative, pride of place centerpieces were one of her own baking specialties.

"This looks very good," said the teacher, impressed. "Beautiful, magnificent decorations."

Anastasia smiled through her churning, nauseous stomach and pale face as Aunt Petunia puffed up a little bit with pride.

The teacher took a taste with a fork - all four leaned forward, holding their breaths -

"Magnificent. The tastes are all there, nothing's run together, it's well baked but not too much so. Very well done. This is a strong contender for the winner," said the teacher, smiling, and Anastasia wasn't the only member of her family who suddenly relaxed in a flood of ecstatic relief.

As the teacher walked away, she murmured to Anastasia, "See? I told you that you could do it. Good job on how much you've grown."

Anastasia looked after her teacher - and slowly smiled in pride. She felt very glad, suddenly, that she had taken this class.

Finally, the line of tasting was finished and the teacher stood up at the front to dead silence. The entire classroom was holding their breath.

"In third place - Simon, over there." That work station cheered. "In second place - Emily, over there." That work station again cheered.

"And in first place… Anastasia, up here in the middle!"

Anastasia stood so stock still she couldn't believe her own ears at first. But then a father off to the side said wryly, "Of course," in an amazed and impressed tone of voice as he had watched them. And then the Dursleys were cheering like mad men and jumping up and down.

And then Anastasia went totally still as she was swept up into a big, warm hug.

She relaxed into the hug, tears in her eyes. It was the first one she could remember having in… a long time.

She smiled as her family cheered for her victory. Her pride and confidence in herself and her own fiery, warm competitiveness at being the best… had been cemented.

She had been good enough, after all.


	7. Ingrid Two

Chapter Six: Ingrid Two

Vernon obsessed over what that damn psychiatrist had said for days.

He thought about it tossing and turning in bed at night. Distracted at work during the day. Silent during dinner.

Nobody could get him to talk about what had gone on in the private office. Dudley demanded, Petunia wondered worriedly. Only the girl never said anything, giving him sideways looks he had trouble reading. Before, he would usually have assumed she was merely being uncaring and shifty.

But now everything had been called into question for him. He wished he could let all that evidence go - but he could not.

Because there was more evidence, staring him right in the face. He couldn't read the girl, and she did make him nervous. So he assumed a shifty lack of care.

But he had no proof of it, did he?

And this rankled. It rankled. Vernon was a businessman, through and through, a political man. He had always prided himself as a logical man. He hated making uninformed decision.

But the fact remained that Ingrid did act very little like her father whom Vernon had hated so very much. Even Vernon could tell that, reluctantly.

She didn't even look like him.

For some reason, this became the deciding factor for him. Because if he'd sentenced a young girl who had no problems to life with sparse belongings in a cupboard - it would be a horrifying realization, but he had to know. He had to know now.

Vernon Dursley was in the end still only human.

What if what this girl was… was just strange to him? Was not the end of the world?

In the end, the decision to seek treatment was three things: difficult, obsessive, and lonely. And it led to a huge fight with his wife, one of the worst they'd ever had.

"You are entirely normal! You are completely fine, you are not deficient!" Petunia snarled in the living room the night he told her.

"No one is claiming I'm deficient!" Vernon shouted back, anxious and harassed. "But it's not normal, is it? It's not normal to be terrified by brown shoes with black pants, is it?!" His eyes were wide; he was desperate for her to see what he saw.

"Oh, so because you're a bit eccentric -"

"You've always found me eccentric?!"

"I didn't say that!"

"Yes, you did!"

"I CANNOT HAVE AN ABNORMAL HUSBAND! I ALREADY HAD AN ABNORMAL EVERYTHING ELSE!"

Petunia shouted these last words, and both spouses paused wide-eyed and pale as those words hung there in the silence, with no way to take them back. Vernon was hurt. Petunia was breathing deeply, as if this had exploded out of her after being kept inside for years.

"... I have to seek treatment," Vernon said helplessly and quietly at last, throwing out his hands. "For this Asperger's mental illness. I have to. It… It'll be better for everyone, can't you see that?"

Petunia puffed up in fury - and turned away with tears in her eyes, her back stiff. She hated people seeing her cry, always had.

"Petunia…" Vernon reached out to take her shoulder, but Petunia shrugged away from him.

"I thought I'd been attracted to someone normal," she hissed in helpless upset and rage. "And all along… all along I'd just been falling for my family all over again…."

Vernon put his hand back, stung. "That… is wildly unfair. I can't do anything about this."

"... Neither could they."

Petunia looked around - saw both children hiding in the banisters of the staircase out in the entryway, listening. Ingrid was pale and solemn. Dudley was crying.

"Go!" Petunia suddenly snapped, charging for them, snarling. "Back to your cupboard, back to your bedroom! Go NOW!"

Before Vernon could tell her to calm down and stop yelling at the children, both children had scampered away to their separate spaces. The cupboard door closed behind Ingrid. Petunia stood teary and breathing heavily with fury in the aftermath.

She was the one around the girl most during the day. Dudley, too, though Dudley at least could be guaranteed to be treated well.

Vernon watched it all, troubled.

* * *

And so despite his wife, who found the whole thing infuriating and frustrating and made it known by storming about and ignoring him a lot, Vernon accepted both the medication and the therapy treatments. It was humiliating at first, accepting help.

Completely humiliating.

But he did it.

He looked down frowning at a little pill one night - then said to himself, "Man up. No use to be afraid of and embarrassed by a tiny white tablet." And he popped one in his mouth there in the upstairs bathroom and swallowed it down with a glass of water.

The medications made him feel a little flat for several days. Finally he realized it was because he wasn't shouting at people or losing his temper anymore. He no longer felt overwhelming sensations of discomfort, fear, and paranoia.

Going about his daily life oddly calm, he felt almost flat.

He was bored by his life, he realized worriedly as he passed blankly through the days. Without the entire world to fight… his life bored him.

His employees treated him like a bomb that might go off at any moment, wary of this new person who didn't yell at them. What the hell had he been doing with his life?

He mentioned this during therapy.

"Do you feel your former anger and fear was keeping life interesting? Is it the routine that's bothering you?" the therapist asked curiously, sitting across from him in her office.

"No, the routine's fine, it's just… there's no… passion," Vernon struggled to explain. "That sounds so airy-fairy and artsy, everything I've always despised."

The therapist gave a small smile. "As these sessions pass," she said, amused, "maybe we might want to talk about why you secretly want a little more airy-fairy and artsy in your life.

"Perhaps, despite your irrational fear of it, it is not so bad. What is it about the imaginative and different that disturbs you, Mr Dursley?"

Vernon sat and thought about this for a long time.

"... I can't control it," he realized, and again he thought of the girl Ingrid and her people. "I can't control it."

He shifted uncomfortably in guilt at this admittance.

"... Perhaps we can teach you," said his therapist gently, "not to instinctively hate the things you can't control.

"Perhaps we can teach you… to see others, including the imaginative, as human and feeling a little bit more."

* * *

Over time, Vernon began to see the full depth of how he had been acting - and began to question his hatred of his niece.

As Petunia watched, he began trying to be more measured toward his son, not as worshipful - as well as a bit nicer to his niece. He treated Ingrid differently, and Ingrid became kinder and more understanding in response. A series of images passed:

Ingrid moving her things up to her own brand-new upstairs bedroom, a look of delight on her face.

Ingrid asking Vernon questions over his paper at the kitchen table, being patiently taught things like business and politics. She soaked it all in, listening closely and silently.

Ingrid slowly giving her own thoughts in return. Vernon and Ingrid starting up a dialogue.

Ingrid did listen closely, and she became a very firm-minded, intelligent, stoical little girl - with a large streak of soft and understanding kindness somewhere inside her. Ingrid talked about and was quizzed constantly sharp-minded on the news by her uncle, who she became very fond of, and she began learning cars and other quiet mechanical jobs in a soft-spoken way out in the garage beside him - in addition to her reading and drawing, and her nursing goal, all of which Vernon began funding and supporting.

A final image: Ingrid quietly guiding her uncle away by the arms off to the side, when the crowds became too much on a shopping outing one day.

Of all the people to treat his illness in the most humane way possible, Vernon honestly hadn't expected for it to be the Potter girl. And he felt a new connection to her - a new gratefulness for her.

She was, he realized, genuinely a good person. And in a strange way, he felt forgiven for the way he had behaved in the past. Which was perhaps more than he deserved.

It had been his illness fearing and hating her, all along. It took him some time, to overcome the shame from that.

Dudley was not as understanding and a great deal more spoiled. Vernon watched from a distance, troubled, as a flurry of different images appeared before him on that front: Dudley pushing Ingrid over in a charge to the television set. Dudley and his gang of friends terrorizing the neighbors. Dudley demanding yet another new toy, the old one broken behind him, or a fourth helping of dessert.

And Petunia smiling fondly and giving Dudley what he wanted - every time.

It couldn't be healthy, Vernon started to think. Could it?

Finally, one evening Vernon was sitting in his favorite armchair with the two children, trying to get them to cooperate on the living room rug before him. "Now, Ingrid, you give your toy to Dudley. Come now, don't hesitate, give it over. And Dudley you - no, Dudley, don't break it, what's the matter with you?!"

"There's nothing wrong with the boy," said Petunia from the kitchen behind them in a hissed, nasally tone. They turned to find her standing there, hands on her hips.

It was her most direct acidic barb yet. "What's that supposed to mean?" said Vernon slowly, his eyes narrowed, at last rising to the bait. "... You two," he said seriously without looking to the children as Petunia puffed up. "To your rooms. Now."

The children quickly scampered away, but Vernon knew by now inevitably they'd be listening closely.

"Do you know - people promise in a marriage to support someone in illness?" Vernon stood. "Do you remember that part? Or did we leave that out?"

"How dare you!" She pushed a finger in his chest. "This is not like - like cancer or -"

"So you'd rather I was dying, than that I had something you might actually have to work on?"

Petunia opened her mouth - and closed it again, pale, furious tears sparking in her eyes and her jaw clenched in disgust.

"I'm the one being treated, Petunia, but I'm not the one most determined to hold onto a hatred of oddness," said Vernon coldly. "Not when the mental health problems are gotten past."

"You're - you're saying I'm sick?!" Petunia shrieked - and she tried to shove him, but he grabbed her arms this time, not hard, and held them there.

"I am saying that you have your own problems, and you spoil our son," said Vernon crisply. "After all these months of anger and frostiness when I needed support the most… I might have to rethink a few things."

And he walked away, leaving her standing there sagging and looking stunned and defeated in the silence.

The house was dead quiet - not even the listening children moved or made a sound, though Vernon knew Ingrid at least must be wondering what this meant for her family. She had that kind of mind.

Petunia stood there in the living room for a long time, and the most alarming part was that Vernon up in their bedroom realized he did not particularly care.

He used to care. That was what was different.

* * *

Author's Notes: Wow, guys, it's been a month tomorrow at this time since I started posting!

I'm hoping to have childhood finished by the end of summer. Wouldn't that be so fitting for a Harry Potter fic?


	8. Esmeralda Three

Chapter Seven: Esmeralda Three

"Has Mum seemed… different to you lately?"

Esmeralda looked up from her homework at the kitchen table, stunned. Dudley was standing there in the kitchen doorway, frowning. The two of them were at home alone together.

Dudley might have been treating her better lately, since she'd gotten out of her cupboard and been given a bedroom, but he still wasn't exactly a good brother figure.

"You're… asking for my opinion?" said Esmeralda in disbelieving skepticism.

Dudley blushed, but straightened and rallied, lifting his chin.

"Well," said Esmeralda, frowning, sitting back. "Yes. She's been spending more time with her trendy work friends. I think they're the ones changing her. Not in a bad way, though," said Esmeralda thoughtfully, her eyes narrowed, assessing. "It's almost good for her. She's wearing these big vintage jackets, and she's taken up writing. She's asserting herself more.

"It's actually kind of cool to watch. She's become more… I don't know, more quiet, stoical."

"And…" Dudley sat down tentatively at the table across from Esmeralda. "You don't think she seems less… like a woman? Less… like my Mum?"

"... No," said Esmeralda firmly. "She's just a different kind of woman and Mum. That doesn't make her less of your Mum. And she seems happier."

It was odd, trying to counsel Dudley through anything as intelligent as an identity crisis.

Dudley nodded slowly, obviously thinking hard. "Thanks," he said unexpectedly at last, and Esmeralda blinked at him in wide-eyed disbelief.

Then she smiled warmly, big sisterly and amused. "You're welcome," she said cheerfully, and went back to her homework.

Just then, Aunt Petunia could be heard at the front doorway, back from work. A couple of minutes later, she bustled inside, short blonde hair curled around her face and in a brown bomber jacket. She was already scribbling something down on a notepad; there were ink stains on her fingers.

She looked up. "I'm back from work. I'm going out with my coworkers tonight after Vernon gets home," she announced, and the children didn't react, for this had by now become not unusual. "Lunch?"

She went to the counter - as Esmeralda had said. Oddly quiet, self assured, stoical.

"I'll help," said Esmeralda, smiling, and she went to the counter to work beside Aunt Petunia. "It's fine that you won't be home tonight, I have a long phone call planned with a school friend anyway. Still our usual hobbies this weekend?" she asked cheerfully.

Aunt Petunia smiled. "Of course. Duddy?" She turned expectantly back to her son, who became brighter at the attention. "What do you want?"

Dudley paused, the gears behind his eyes spinning… And then he stood up and said, of all things, "I'll help, too." And he went to join them at the counter.

Almost like he wanted to feel included.

Aunt Petunia looked on with misty, fond eyes and Esmeralda looked down and bit back a small, satisfied smile.

Yes, Uncle Vernon aside, everything was great indeed.

* * *

Yet it was Uncle Vernon who was the problem. Esmeralda watched as Uncle Vernon suddenly began trying to assert a new kind of dominance in his marriage.

For that was indeed what it was. He would suddenly interrupt Aunt Petunia and give reverse directions over her. Once, she was saying, "To get to the shop, we have to go by Sleet Street -"

He straightened and cleared his throat there in Number Four's entryway. "We're going by Apple Way!" he announced.

Aunt Petunia gave him an odd look. "The shop isn't anywhere near Apple Way," she said flatly, slightly irritated. Uncle Vernon flushed furious red and Dudley sniggered.

It was always like that. Uncle Vernon tried to assert dominance - and in the process everyone came to the uncomfortable realization that when it came down to it, this was actually Aunt Petunia's natural role.

Uncle Vernon would bicker just to bicker. "We could have spaghetti for dinner tonight," said Aunt Petunia one evening.

"I think we should have steak," said Uncle Vernon.

"We had steak last night," she said dismissively, looking over the grocery list.

"Well we can have it again," said Uncle Vernon, and he glared. Not one to be downtrodden, Aunt Petunia glared right back.

Tension was palpable in the air. Neither spouse was the type to put up with much. The big coming fight was inevitable - and come it did, in high fashion.

Sitting listening on the landing, staring at each other pale and wide-eyed, Esmeralda and Dudley both got a secret front row seat the night it finally happened.

* * *

"You've turned into a harlot!"

"How dare you!" The sound of a slap from Aunt Petunia, and then struggling. Esmeralda leaned forward physically on the landing, her eyes huge, staring at a terrified Dudley -

But then came the sounds of separating and all went still.

"I don't understand you at all anymore!" Uncle Vernon yelled in chronic distress.

"Oh, so that makes me a harlot, does it?" Aunt Petunia snapped. "I'm finally happy, so that makes me -"

"You weren't happy before?"

"You were?"

"You told me you were!"

"WELL I LIED!" A stunned silence. "I lied to make you happy. Is that what you want to hear? The truth? I felt trapped here. Trapped in this house. Trapped in my roles."

"So the truth comes out," said Uncle Vernon quietly and darkly, and it had crept into his tone - that suspicion he usually reserved for people who weren't his wife and son.

"Oh, go ahead, add me to your long list of deeply suspicious traitors!" said Aunt Petunia, loudly but in the tone of someone who had finally just thrown up her hands and given up. "Yes, I did feel trapped. And now - I haven't even given up those roles! I just dress differently! And I write! And I have a job!

"What's wrong with any of those things? Why can't you just be happy for me?" she pleaded.

"That is wildly untrue," said Uncle Vernon quietly. "You are not the same person. You've changed."

"... And you haven't," said Aunt Petunia quietly, sounding tearful and defeated. "So maybe that's our answer."

There was a long silence down in the living room.

Finally, Dudley leaned over and whispered, "Come to my room."

Surprised, and a little hesitant and suspicious even after all this time, Esmeralda stood and followed Dudley away from the landing, down the hall and into his bedroom.

There was a television in the corner, and massive, messy mountains of things and toys were stacked everywhere. Snacks littered the bedside table. Esmeralda could barely make out the messy red and blue bed. Slowly, she picked her way through the mess and then sat down on that bed beside Dudley. She saw that an alien video game was on pause on the telly before her.

Dudley sat down next to her - and he was tearful. Dudley was about to cry, Esmeralda realized, concerned and worried, stunned.

"How - how are you always so brave and stony like that?" he asked, sniffling and looking down.

"... I don't know. I've always been that way," she admitted. "I don't know how I do it."

"You're - you're stronger than me," he admitted emotionally. "Going through all that the way you did…"

"Well now I know you're upset," said Esmeralda, trying to smile uneasily and putting a hand on his shoulder, "because you're complimenting me."

Dudley laughed a little in a watery way and wiped at his nose. "They're… they're getting divorced, aren't they?" he asked, his face screwed up against the tears, red.

"... Maybe," was all Esmeralda could admit, honestly and simply.

"I'm - I'm scared. I want to stop it like I can stop everything else bad, but I can't fix this with a tantrum. So I don't know how," he said in a small, shaky voice, still not looking at Esmeralda.

Esmeralda sighed and put her arm around him, letting his heavy head fall against her shoulder. He cried for a few minutes and she was silent.

Of all things, it had gotten to this point - Esmeralda was comforting Dudley.

* * *

Author's Notes: I'm taking a poll on which marriage is worse. Ingrid's, with "I'm storming about angry with my husband for having Asperger's Syndrome" Petunia. Or Esmeralda's, with "my penis feels smaller because my wife isn't doing everything I want her to anymore" Vernon. Obviously, since Anastasia's family stays together, her next chapter will go a bit differently. Which might be refreshing at this point, to be honest.

Sorry, I retreat into humorous sarcasm whenever things get too emotional, even when it comes to my own stories apparently. This is not to demean the very real problems either marriage is facing. These things do happen. This is not Harry Potter wild fantasy.

Happy 4th of July, anyway, kiddos.

Dudley hasn't bonded with Ingrid yet - he's the only Dudley that hasn't bonded with a Potter girl - because whole chapters will be devoted to Ingrid-Dudley bonding. That comes later.

I also thought I'd show in this and last chapter two perspectives on The Big Fight - one from the couple, and one from the children. Different perspectives just worked for the two different stories.

By the way, the lines "You weren't happy before?" "You were?" They were in part inspired by the movie 500 Days of Summer. I guess some people didn't like it, but I loved that movie. It's one of the only films I can think of that's realistic in what would happen after the initial spark wears off in a Manic Pixie Dream Girl relationship.

More to the point, it's also one of the most realistic, relatable breakup movies I think I've ever seen. So much genuinely well done social commentary is built into that one film. Definitely check it out if you get a chance.

I pulled slightly from one line in Taylor Swift's "Dear John": "And you'll add my name to your long list of traitors who don't understand."


	9. Anastasia Three

Chapter Eight: Anastasia Three

Anastasia sat down slowly in the Privet Drive living room, looking around hesitantly at the three deadly serious Dursleys around her. "You called me in here… for a talk?" she pointed out tentatively, wincing.

What was so horrible that they all looked so deadly solemn and had called her in here for a sit-down?

"... Yes. Anastasia, we've done you wrong," said Aunt Petunia without preamble, as if taking a deep breath and forcing out the words.

Anastasia paused in surprise - openly staring.

She didn't think she'd ever heard the Dursleys admit they'd been wrong about anything before. Let alone her. She was… stunned.

Aunt Petunia winced, seeing the surprise in her expression.

"Your family and background made us suspicious for a long time," said Uncle Vernon in a deep, serious voice, clearing his throat. "But we have decided… that perhaps you and who you are is not so bad after all. You have convinced us, forced us to see that."

"Yeah, you don't actually suck," said Dudley bluntly. "And maybe all your artsy, imaginative stuff doesn't suck either. So we're saying we're sorry."

Anastasia paused - and then looked down, tears blinding her eyes, blinking hard, trying not to cry. It was humiliating, but the Dursleys had actually leaned forward frowning in concern.

"It's… it's quite alright," she managed, putting a hand to her mouth. "I'm sorry, I -"

"It's okay," said Uncle Vernon in a gentle, fond tone he had never used on her before, and she cried quietly for a couple of minutes sitting there in the living room.

"Now. It's not as bad as all that," said Aunt Petunia briskly, in a slightly shaky tone, as she walked over to sit down next to Anastasia and place a careful, slightly uncertain hand on her shoulder. "We have some good news."

Anastasia looked up, holding back a sniffle, face red and teary eyes wide.

"You're getting your own upstairs bedroom," said Dudley, smiling. "And we're remodeling the house!"

"Might as well, symbolically and all that," said Aunt Petunia matter of factly, standing and shrugging. "This place has needed a redecorating and renovating for a good while anyway."

"Quite right, lots of lovely things on the horizon!" Uncle Vernon boomed firmly, as if determining away any sadness or guilt. "Oh, and we wanted to ask you - now your baking classes have finished, and your grades are steady at a high level, what else do you want to try?"

They looked at her expectantly, and she blinked once more in surprise. They were willing to let her… branch out? Try other hobbies?

"Well, I've always wanted to try figure skating," she admitted, smiling shyly. Then she took what was still a slight risk. "And… maybe music?"

Something creative.

The Dursleys paused - and then nodded thoughtfully. "What kind of music?" asked Uncle Vernon.

"Well. I'd like to sing," she said with unusually shy eagerness. "And - I don't know, maybe something classical and sophisticated? I want everyone to enjoy my music." Anastasia gave a cautious side glance at her rather dignified, upper crust aunt and uncle. "So… maybe the piano and the violin? I want to challenge myself," she added, fiery and determined.

"That… sounds good," said Aunt Petunia, in a tone of clear surprise that she agreed.

Uncle Vernon smirked. "Let's do it!" said Dudley fiercely.

Anastasia slowly gave a wide, bright smile.

And so in addition to her fanciful chocolate hazelnut desserts, and her good grades, Anastasia began adding other hobbies and accomplishments of her own choice to her growing list.

And even as she got her own upstairs bedroom, and started her new hobbies and added further friends to her growing list… the Dursleys began redecorating their home.

The house itself had a new look - a complement of sorts to Anastasia's new look herself.

* * *

But before the house itself was finished, a lot of family dynamics were already changing. Quite rapidly, in fact. It was like the open apology had unblocked something… and changes that had been ready and building for years had come pouring out.

Dudley and Anastasia were let off out of the car at school one morning, and Anastasia hung back quietly from everyone as usual while Dudley went to his gang of friends. Dudley caught a glance of her out of the corner of his eye, there on the playground full of chattering children before the school bell rang, huddled around her books in a corner by herself -

And his face became rather firm. He walked over to her, steered her in the direction of a group of girls by the arms, and they all stopped, looking just as startled as Anastasia was. "Here," he said. "You make friends. I'm not picking on her anymore," he added loudly to the startled group of girls, for practically the whole playground had stopped and gone quiet to stare.

Then Dudley marched back to his own equally surprised group of guy friends.

The girls smiled compassionately… and started up a conversation. Anastasia smiled, and talked eagerly back.

Dudley wasn't entirely gone from Anastasia's school life, though. "Hey, Potter!" a big older guy called, smirking and starting toward her while she was chatting on the playground with the new group of girls on the school steps during recess - everyone froze up, eyes wide -

And then Dudley stepped between them, snarling. And Dudley, despite his age, was even bigger than the first boy.

"Heard she's in the market for a new bully, did you? Well, she's mine," he said in a hard voice, pointing behind himself at Anastasia. "You stay away from my sister!"

The same words as before.

Several members of the playground had stopped to watch. At last, the bully backed up. "Okay… Okay…" he said quietly, raising his hands, and he left.

Anastasia felt warmth and love for Dudley, something she previously would not have thought possible, giving him a small smile from her new group of school friends.

But Dudley wasn't the only one who had changed. Anastasia was suddenly a child of her aunt and uncle, too.

Take dinner one night. "How are you doing in school?" Uncle Vernon boomed, and it took Anastasia a moment to realize he was talking to her - not Dudley.

"Eat your vegetables, please," said Aunt Petunia, not snarling, but sternly, like a mother figure, reaching over to tap the plate.

Anastasia paused - and bowed her head, smiling serenely. "Yes, ma'am," she said to her aunt, and she turned to Uncle Vernon, swinging her legs excitedly. "It went well! I -"

And the scene panned out, with Dudley wolfing down food at the table with all the rest of them. A warm glow had surrounded the kitchen table and the family in the quiet suburban evening.

The next day, Aunt Petunia drove Anastasia to her first hobby and dropped her off. Anastasia had gotten out of the car and started toward the building, used to being independent. And then -

"Do well!"

Anastasia turned back in surprise.

"... At your music," said Aunt Petunia awkwardly, leaning toward the open window, looking a little hesitant at this display of motherly affection.

"Because you had to buy the instruments?" Anastasia called. "And my skates?"

"No," said Aunt Petunia firmly. "Because you're a part of this family and I expect you to do well."

Anastasia slowly beamed… and then ran toward the music building doors, newly energized. "Thanks!"

Aunt Petunia looked after her - shook her head fondly, rolled up the window, started the car and drove away.

* * *

But the house redecorating was finished, and what a wonder it was.

Not only was Anastasia's cupboard gone and her bedroom a spacious upstairs bedroom, but her city suburban house now looked Modernist - totally transformed. It looked mildly wealthy, filled with white colors, swirling light fixtures, glass and crystal, and wide airy spaces.

"I had to take on extra business clients just to afford this, but look how wonderful it is," Uncle Vernon boomed proudly, as the whole family stood at the doorway looking into the transformed living room.

Anastasia had usually been skeptical, even scathing of Dursley bragging in the past. But for once, she could look into this new window into her new life and say quietly in wide-eyed wonder: "Beautiful…"

The proud smiles that passed across her family's faces did not escape her.

And so the house had a new look to go with Anastasia's new sophisticated black, little vintage Chanel dress appearance. She wore delicate, dangling bracelets. Her dark red hair was piled up behind her head; her hazel almond shaped eyes above pale, high cheekbones sparkled.

Later, Anastasia climbed the stairs, entered her spacious new upstairs bedroom… and smiled. There was a big, empty space for her whole new life here. The window curtain fluttered in a gentle breeze.

Her cupboard was finally gone - symbolically as well as physically.

And as she started in on her new figure skating and music, adding them to her high grades and fanciful chocolate baking…

She knew a family fit for more room to grow close had been tentatively established. And her new, personally chosen hobbies were on their way.

* * *

Author's Note: Please do enjoy Anastasia's happiness, because next come the two divorces. They will be rather thrilling in their character conflict, but as you can imagine, not terribly happy segments. After that the unhappiness should start to level out, and more happiness should start to come.

Anastasia's finished look, home, and hobbies have all been set out in one neat segment. That will eventually also happen for the other two. Again, it will not be in their last finishing chapter.

Vernon has improved toward the imaginative and odd, as have the Dursleys. Don't worry, Petunia will get her own shot. ;)


	10. Ingrid Three

Chapter Nine: Ingrid Three

Tea in the Dursley house before bed was rather quiet that night. Petunia and Vernon sat silently in the living room, drinking tea in an awkward sort of suburban quiet, without their usual conversation. The children were already in bed.

"How… how was work?" Petunia asked over eagerly. She'd been trying with effort for days to suddenly seem more loving and cheerful - as if to make up for their previous horrible fight.

"Do you know, there's a distance between us now," said Vernon quietly, staring out the living room window, not taking her bait. "We never talk about anything important anymore."

Petunia scowled. "That's what I'm trying to do," she said with flat irritability, her old self shining through for a split second - because of course it was still there, had never left.

"No. You're trying to gloss over the problem. There's a difference," said Vernon bluntly, turning to her expressionlessly. "And so our marriage continues to die quietly."

"How poetic," said Petunia in a sarcastic, sniffy voice, stiffly taking a sip of her tea.

Vernon waited until she had finished swallowing the bracing, warm sip. "I have filed for a divorce."

The words were quiet, solemn, and simple.

Petunia's eyes widened in genuine, exquisite pain and betrayal - and then fury made her face into a snarl. She threw the china platter with the teacups onto the floor in a great and almighty crash, tea ruining her precious carpet. For once, she didn't seem to care.

"Damn you!" she shrieked, eyes wide, face pale. "Damn you! You've ruined everything!"

She stormed out of the room, through the kitchen, and out the back door. Vernon sat quietly in the aftermath, staring sadly at the ruined teacups, a symbol of so many other things, as he heard Petunia sit down on the back steps into the garden and begin to cry.

Vernon sighed, heaved himself to his feet, and slowly climbed the stairs to the landing. The children were already waiting there. They had burst out of their rooms at the sudden crash and the shriek, faces pale, eyes wide.

Those big, innocent eyes stared up at him. Vernon Dursley felt in that moment like a truly terrible, hopelessly defective human being.

"Petunia and I are getting a divorce," he said simply, in a lost voice. "I'm sorry," he added, because he didn't know what else he could say.

"What - what happens to us from here?" Dudley asked in a scared voice.

"... I don't know." It was one of the most painful things Vernon had ever had to admit. "One of us gets you. Both of us might get you at different times. That goes for Ingrid as well as Dudley."

"But you'll be living in different places?"

"... Yes."

Dudley suddenly screamed, and smashed his fist into the nearest wall in rage.

"Dudley -" Vernon began helplessly, pained.

"I hate you! I HATE YOU!" Dudley screamed, leaving a broken-hearted Vernon as he stormed to his room.

Ingrid stood there in the silent aftermath. "... It's going to be okay, Uncle Vernon," she began quietly, but her voice at last broke a little by the end of the sentence. Her face worked with the effort of trying not to cry.

Vernon sighed and held out his arms, trying for a hesitant, hopeful smile. Ingrid ran into them and hugged him hard, silent, scared tears seeping into his shirt.

"You guys just always seemed so strong," Ingrid said into his shirt in a shaky voice. "You were always together, even when you were behaving horribly."

"... I know," said Vernon softly, his cheek against her hair. "But maybe we both need to be with someone who stands up to us when we're being horrible, yes?"

Ingrid lifted her head to look up at him searchingly.

"Remember, Ingrid," said Vernon solemnly, in prophetic words, "that's what a good marriage is supposed to be. The other person is supposed to be able to stand up to you when you're behaving horribly."

It was one of the only lessons all three versions of the same person would receive, at one point or another, during their childhood with these new, repentant Dursleys. Ingrid got it from Vernon. Esmeralda would receive it from Petunia. Anastasia would get it during an apology one day from both parents.

"That's what a good marriage is supposed to be. The other person is supposed to be able to stand up to you when you're behaving horribly."

Perhaps it was the obvious guilt behind each different lesson that would make the lesson so memorable for each young girl.

Marriage was not both people agreeing on behaving horribly. Marriage was supposed to be a process of each person making the other a better person.

Marriage was about standing up to the badness - not about withstanding it.

* * *

Petunia found a secretary job and moved out into a nearby flat remarkably quickly. Her own fury and, if Vernon were being generous, her own heartbreak seemed to have consumed her and made her constantly furious.

She spent as much as possible with her Dudley, who was still living with Vernon and Ingrid at Number Four. She would pick him up from school and take him to the playground or the park, buy him treats. But she refused for now to spend any time with Ingrid or any more time at Number Four with Vernon.

Some things, she seemed to have become too angry and bitter to currently handle.

Those feelings carried over into the inevitable first lawyer board meetings. Divorces were not over after the paperwork was filed, as Vernon quickly learned on a deeply personal level.

Vernon would sit down at a long board meeting table with his lawyers, Petunia would sit on the other side of the long table with hers. The battle lines had been set, the battleground was ready for play. Once, Petunia had been the only person Vernon could count on to always be on his side, but today there had never been so much distance between them. So much anger, so many accusations thrown by lawyers.

Vernon stared at Petunia, pale and frowning, wondering if she were having the same thoughts he was as their lawyers bickered about ownership in what seemed a pointless, droning way in the background. Petunia's face was twisted into a horrific scowl. She seemed paler and thinner, so small there clutching her purse, and she wouldn't look at him.

How had it come to this?

At the end, they both had to sign agreeing to the divorce terms. Vernon slowly and sadly signed his name, and there was Petunia signing hers - for the last time the signature so similar.

Vernon looked up, hoping to meet Petunia's eyes, but she had already rushed out of the room. She was clearly upset, the bitter silence between them stifling.

Once Vernon would have been able to go after her. Now it was not his place, a strange thought, so he stood there staring at the doorway where she had disappeared.

He had a peculiar feeling within him - as though he were standing in the aftermath of an earthquake.

"Mr Dursley," said his lawyer, "we have arranged for a social worker over a series of meetings to recommend to a judge who gets custody of both children." The words had been said quietly in his ear.

"... Yes," said Vernon absently. "Thank you."

There had never been less for him to thank anyone about. Some things seemed irreparably damaged.

Perhaps it was the sudden longing for the simplicity of being a child again that made him have the idea of calling his sister.

* * *

"Vernon? How are you?" said Marge immediately over the phone as Vernon sat alone in the strangely empty, sparse, bare Number Four kitchen. "I know it's been… difficult."

Her usually loud, warm voice was uncharacteristically hesitant.

Vernon sighed. "Marge, I… you should know, most of the reason I'm divorcing is that Petunia couldn't handle a diagnosis. I have Asperger's Syndrome."

He winced, waiting for the reaction.

"... That tramp is divorcing you over that?!" Marge sounded highly indignant. "How dare she! What can you do about it!"

It was refreshing, and… not the answer he'd been expecting.

"You… it doesn't bother you?" said Vernon, surprised.

"Oh, well, I always knew you were a bit odd," said Marge matter of factly. "And I don't mean that in an insulting way. You're a good family man and a good brother, and you've got a good head on your shoulders, all that corporate stuff and all."

When she was being kind, Marge's voice had much of that warm, matter of fact bustle to it.

Vernon smiled, feeling oddly emotional. "... Thank you, Marge."

"Of course. But you are divorcing that hussy. So what happens now?"

"Well, there's a coming child custody battle involving social workers," Vernon admitted. "I'd like to keep both children currently in my possession."

"Both of them?" said Marge, surprised.

"The Potter girl… has been improving. Or, well, that's not entirely true. Marge, I have a confession to make. I may have spoiled my son, and poisoned your views towards the girl you don't see all that often - because of my Asperger's. Her difference made me nervous, but I have come over time and treatment to see that she is not actually… bad.

"I'm sorry. I think I wrongfully ruined your opinion of her."

"... I see," said Marge, and she sounded thoughtful. "So you'd like both children."

"Yes. I don't know if Petunia can be trusted - to treat her niece well after the problems she had with her sister, or not to spoil Dudley, to treat him as he needs to be treated as a child. But as a single man, my odds of getting them are not… high," Vernon admitted, troubled. "Though my income, job, and home are better."

"... What if I moved in with you?" said Marge suddenly, sounded rather excited.

"What?" said Vernon, honestly surprised.

"I could get to know these children, have more of a hand in raising them better and differently! What if you had all that and you did have a single woman, a sister, in the house?"

"That… I like that idea," said Vernon, straightening in his kitchen chair and warming to it immediately.

There was a smirk in Marge's voice. "We'll get those two children you want yet. Of course, we would need somewhere new."

"Yes. Time to leave the bad feelings of the old house behind, I think," Vernon admitted. "As nerve wracking as the idea is to me."

"I want to take my dogs with me," said Marge, "so you would need to use all your business money for a big country estate… somewhere on the outskirts of Surrey…"

"And with all that going for us -" Vernon grinned. "Who wouldn't agree to letting me keep the children?"

And so a plan had been set.


	11. Esmeralda Four

Chapter Ten: Esmeralda Four

"That is one hell of an argument," said one of Petunia's coworkers in surprise, a few days later after work in the outside hall. She had finally told them about the big fight as they were all getting their coats on over their uniforms. "And it sounds like there was a lot of tension before that."

Petunia looked down sadly, the pinched lines in her newly thin, pale face tight.

"Well I think he sounds like a big bully!" said a tiny, curvy coworker with curly red hair indignantly. "His manhood not being able to handle you changing and setting off on your own! That's not what marriage is about at all!"

"You're right, it's not." Petunia took a deep breath and looked up deadly serious into her surprised coworkers' faces. "I'm filing for a divorce."

"... Does anyone in your house know?" the first coworker asked, the blonde woman who had tended Esmeralda that first day, a kind and strong willed woman in real life, wincing in sympathy.

"Not yet. I'm filing the divorce papers alone, and I'm - I'm scared, I don't know what's going to happen, I don't know what to do, I -"

And Petunia began crying, humiliatingly, right there in front of them.

"I'm - I'm sorry," she managed, hand over her tearful face, looking away with an attempt at dignity, "I don't know what's gotten into me, I -"

"Oh, it's perfectly alright." And then her new friends were hugging her. "This would be hard for anybody…"

Then the first girl, the lead blonde girl, stood back and smiled with determination into Petunia's surprised, tearful face.

"I know what we'll do," she said enthusiastically. "All these women will support you together against this awful man." She lifted her chin proudly. "We're going with you to file the paperwork!"

"You're… you're sure?" said Petunia, her tone uncharacteristically uncertain.

But her new friends were all smiling. "Of course. We're all in this together when it comes to each other. Especially against nasty men," the blonde added mischievously, though her eyes were sad for Petunia.

Petunia realized with quiet, solemn gratefulness that these were the best friends she'd had in a long time. Changes it had wrought or not, she was glad she had come to Seaborne Dreams.

* * *

The process server looked up in surprise from his desk work when the group of working women trooped into his office.

The blonde in the lead - short blonde hair in a brown bomber jacket - held up filled out divorce paperwork, her expression calm and deadly.

The group of women had their lips pursed, hands on their hips behind her, as if giving her their strength.

"I need," the blonde drawled coldly, "for you to serve these divorce papers to my husband."

"You… don't want to hand them over yourself?" the process server confirmed uncertainly.

Petunia smirked, her eyes flashing. "No," she said crisply and quietly, knowing she was sealing so many fates and accepting it, "I do not."

Petunia was finished. Divorce was bitter, and Petunia was good at vindictive.

But even she wasn't expecting what came next.

* * *

Petunia looked up tentatively from the Number Four sofa as Vernon slammed the divorce paperwork down in front of her a few days later. It was evening; he was just back from work.

"I got served this very impersonally in front of several employees at work," he said, his face thunderous.

Petunia winced. "I just -"

"You want a divorce."

"... Yes."

"After all I've done for you?!"

"You act like you picked me up out of the gutter! I was a secretary from a fairly nice family, Vernon, and I've done plenty for this family since then!" Petunia shouted, standing.

Esmeralda and Dudley were looking from one to the other in fear.

"Well you could have at least told me to my face!"

"I am telling you to your face right now!"

The childish absurdity of all this fighting finally hit Petunia.

Then Vernon grabbed her by the arms and dragged her, shouting and panicked, across the room. He grabbed Esmeralda by the arm, who yelped, and she stumbled after them as they were pulled toward the front door.

Petunia realized all at once what was going on. She was being thrown out of the house that Vernon paid for.

"Duddy! Duddy!" she called, looking frantically after him.

"MUM!" Dudley stood and put a hand after her.

"I'll fix this!" she called to him. "I will!" Somehow.

Then Esmeralda and Petunia were tossed out into the front garden. "GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!" Vernon thundered, red-faced and harassed. "AND STAY OUT!"

And he slammed the door in their faces.

Petunia stood there, taking deep breaths, hearing the horrible sound of Dudley wailing inside, muffled through the door. She was half afraid Esmeralda was about to start crying, but instead Esmeralda just looked up at her in worry.

"... What do we do now?" Esmeralda asked. It was a good question. And Petunia was the adult, so she was supposed to know the answer - an intimidating prospect.

Petunia looked around in embarrassment and realized several neighbors had come outside to stare. Well, that was… irrevocable.

"... We go to a pay phone," she decided determinedly.

Time to test out just how supportive her new friends really were in a crisis when it came down to it.

They crossed darkened city suburban streets together in panic, the night air cold, the occasional car zooming by. Petunia reached the pay phone box. She and Esmeralda huddled inside, and Petunia called the blonde from before.

"Hi, it's Petunia," she said into the phone. "From work. My husband has thrown me out of my house alongside my orphaned niece. Can I stay with you?"

Petunia listened - and relaxed in weary relief.

"Thank you," she said tiredly. "We're at -"

And she told them the neighborhood and street. When she hung up, she turned in the phone box to Esmeralda. "Someone from work is coming to pick us up," she said, attempting a smile.

"And… after that?" Esmeralda asked tentatively, cautious, from underneath her long black hair.

"We'll -" Petunia swallowed, choking back a lump in her throat, trying to remain positive and dignified. "We'll just have to rebuild our life from the ground up. And," she added, clearly upset, "we'll have to try to get back… at least part of Dudley."

* * *

Author's Note: Aaand… the angst is mostly over.


End file.
